


Mise en Place

by Draco_sollicitus



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha Steve Rogers, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Baker Bucky, Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, Coffeeshop AU, Fluff, M/M, Mates and Soulmates, Misunderstandings, Omega Bucky Barnes, Shrunkyclunks, Smitten Steve, Smut, Stress baking to avoid problems, alternating pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2019-12-26 03:35:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18274946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draco_sollicitus/pseuds/Draco_sollicitus
Summary: Bucky Barnes is a baker at a Manhattan coffee shop, one who dreams of a different, more exciting life. Only two people currently know that he's an Omega: his best friend and co-worker, Darcy Lewis, and his cold, calculating boss.And then in walks Steve Rogers, the Alpha to end all Alphas; he turns Bucky's life upside down with an almost embarrassing lack of effort.One's convinced that they're soulmates.The other has zero interest in ever finding a mate.This can only go well.





	1. Frangipane

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!
> 
> Here's my new Stucky WIP. I figured I owed some people some fluff after the emotional rollercoaster of [What's Left of Kisses](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17313827/chapters/40726685), which wrapped earlier this week.
> 
> This fic is currently outlined to be four parts, all about the length of this chapter. I really hope you all enjoy it (and that, like me, you aren't tired of ABO possibilities just yet?)
> 
>  
> 
> **Warnings**
> 
>  
> 
> Obvious warnings for the inherent dynamic of ABO
> 
> In this chapter there are:
> 
> References to popping a knot/a character thinks about his last rut/masturbation; he also masturbates later.
> 
>  **Style notes**  
>  ** denotes a POV change

Bucky slaps the bowl on the counter, fighting back a yawn; he throws in the sugar, the butter, the flour, and sleepily mixes the lot together with his hand.

It’s just after five a.m., and he’s been here since four a.m. -- also known as too goddamn early. But, the zombie hoard of Manhattan professionals will be in at six a.m. on the dot, so Bucky better have his shit, and his baked goods, together by then.

The oven’s waiting as he rolls the lemons around roughly on the counter and sets them aside, moving on to the pastry for the frangipane, crumbling the butter and flour between his fingers until he can sift through it like breadcrumbs.

When the crusts are baking in the oven, he makes the fillings, and, letting them set in the fridge, returns to piping icing, chocolate, and glazes on the now-cooled muffins and croissants he’d pulled out of the oven thirty minutes ago. They’re set out in the display case as soon as they’re done, and Bucky hums in distinct pleasure to himself, while he admires his handiwork.

It’s an Omega Moment, and he’s glad Darcy isn’t around to witness it. She’d probably take a picture and tease him for preening. He can’t blame her for not understanding; she is his only Beta friend, after all.

Make that his only friend.

 _Whatever_.

After he’s officially done prepping most of the pastries and baked goods, he lets himself drag his hands through his hair, slipping the fingers of his right hand along the knots in his left shoulder. The joint twinges, as always, and he grimaces at the pull of pain in his lower right back. He can’t rub what’s really causing the tension - the mating gland, right at the edge of the scarring. _You’re lucky,_ the doctor had said, _both glands, still intact._

Lucky isn't really a word James Buchanan Barnes would use to describe himself.

“Universe’s Punching Bag” is more accurate.

Darcy might even posit “Adorable Old Cat Granny,” the ‘adorable’ thrown in mostly for mollifying purposes.

The bell rings at the back of the coffee shop, and Bucky heads through the kitchen to the employee entrance, his nose twitching at the neutrality of the space. Right now, the kitchen smells like vanilla and apricot and lemon, all pleasant smells, but it doesn’t smell like Bucky or like home or like anything … familiar.

The health code is pretty particular though, which means Bucky’s on insurance-provided suppressants. Therefore, his scent is essentially stunted, and his working space doesn’t smell anything like his living space (and the suppressants are so powerful, his living space barely smells like him, something his Omega-therapist often makes sad, concerned noises over when he mentions it through gritted teeth at his weekly appointments). But, he tells himself he doesn’t mind, that it’s nice to go about his day, passing as a Beta, serving Alphas and Omegas alike who have no idea that the guy with the man bun and the silver hand and the terrible posture is secretly an Omega at the peak of his fertility, barely twenty-five years old, and with ‘child-bearing hips,’ according to the doctor he’d gone to when he was sixteen and presented, the doctor he’d promptly punched in the face.

Bucky’s already a bad Omega - he doesn’t need the reminder at work.

He pushes the thought aside and swings the door open to reveal Darcy Lewis, dripping wet from the random downpour; she walks in bristling like an alleycat, wheeling her monstrosity of a bike in with her.

“Pierce said we can’t keep our bikes in here,” Bucky points out immediately, already closing the door behind her before the warmth of the kitchen can leak out, or the humidity can mess with his muffins.

These are actual concerns that he has.

_Fuck, he needs to get laid._

It’s another intrusive thought to push aside, and it’s easy to ignore when Darcy pushes his good arm playfully. “I’m not leaving my baby out there,” she pouts. “It’ll rust.”

“If I put you out there, will you rust?” He grabs a spoon and shakes it at her playfully as he goes to stir the apple pie filling cooking on the stove.

“Shit, that smells good.” Darcy floats over hopefully, her grubby hands clutched together in front of her while she eyes the pot eagerly. He sighs and fishes around in his apron until he pulls out an extra croissant, one that just so happened to not make it into the display case. Darcy ooo’s with excitement and snatches it away before he can change his mind, immediately nibbling on the treat.

Bucky snorts. “Trash panda.”

“I’m your trash panda,” Darcy hollers at him over her shoulder, already scooting away to clock in. She’ll have to close down, as Bucky’s been here since ass o’clock, and she gets a shorter lunch break than he does, but she also doesn’t have the curse of being the only baker currently employed by Le Soldat d’Hiver.

 _Even the name is fuckin’ pretentious_ , Bucky thinks grumpily, taking the filling off the heat with a little more force than strictly necessary. He starts to scrub his hands clean again, still grumbling away in his head.

His gran had taught him how to bake, and he’d taken to it like a fish to water after the accident, the recipes and careful processes of baking calling to his anxious mind; he’d never quite gotten out of the habit, and while he’s slowly, slowly finishing his degree, attending night classes for Omegas at NYU, it’s not like the world in general _wants_ him to be anything much more than a baker.

But Bucky likes being a baker, he reminds himself, testing the temperature of the filling in the other pot. It’s just that he’d always dreamed of being an engineer or an astronaut. Those dream occupations had quickly been revealed as nothing more than dreams, though, for an Omega like him. Even after the Designation Equality Hiring Act of 1998, it’s an uphill battle for an Omega trying to get a position in a non-traditional field.

And Bucky’s had enough of uphill battles.

So, he counts himself lucky-ish to have any job at all over the age of 21 - the typical age that Omegas settle down - lucky-ish to have his own apartment, lucky-ish to not be tied down to a domineering Alpha who controls every aspect of his life.

Alexander Pierce is an asshole, but at least he’s a Beta. Unluckily, he’s also one of two people who know that Bucky is an Omega. It was a space on his form when he was hired - _“Isn’t it illegal to ask?”_ Bucky had asked nervously, chewing on his lip. _“Didn’t you just tell me anyway by asking that question?_ ” Pierce had countered snidely - and now, it’s one of the many links in a chain that keeps Bucky locked to this place.

Society, lack of training elsewhere, slightly dick-ish boss who will let his next potential employer know that he’s an Omega - _“And who else would keep you? When you go into those ridiculous heats so often, when you might start squeezing out pups any day now?”_ \- Bucky’s pretty much fucked.

At least he gets free baked goods. He pops a cookie into his mouth, letting the crumbs scatter down his black button-down (another stupid choice that Pierce made. Who makes a fuckin’ baker wear _black_?), and heads out to help Darcy finish setting up for the day, clicking on the cappuccino machine because she can’t reach, even in those absurd heeled boots she insists on wearing, even though Bucky can’t see how they don't make her feet ache. He wears Keds, for God's sake, and his arches are probably down there planning a violent coup d’etat, which will be enacted any day now.

There’s already two groggy businessmen waiting outside when Bucky goes to unlock the door at five ‘til six. He can’t even imagine what the poor bastards at Starbucks do, but Le Soldat d’Hiver, or _Soldat,_ as stylized on their window and their napkins and general accoutrements, gets plenty busy, despite being a small business, one of the many pet projects of the elusive and duplicitous Pierce.

It’s a rush after that, Bucky and Darcy taking turns at the register - Peter Parker scoots in at 6:30, already wearing his apron, and jumps in to help them until he darts out the door at ten for his early class. He’ll be back in the afternoon to help relieve Bucky and Darcy for lunch shifts, and Bucky’s glad it’s him and not his vaguely irritating friend Ned (Ned’s a good person, Bucky knows, but he also wants to lock him in the freezer sometimes, when he starts poking around the metal plates of Bucky’s left arm, asking questions here and there about pain and dexterity and strength like Bucky’s a fucking D&D character).

When there’s a lull, Bucky eyes Darcy, who’s frowning at the employee computer in the office.

“Did he approve it?” He asks, genuinely worried for the answer. Darcy doesn’t look away from the screen, teeth buried in her lip as she shakes her head, her cheeks flushed with disappointment and probably more than a little bit of anger. Pierce really should be careful, pissing Darce off - she once tased Thor, the goddamn god of thunder, because he’d startled her in an alleyway.

Thor had laughed it off and complimented her shoes as he lay smoking on the ground at her feet, or so the story goes.

“So. If you could come in this weekend. That’d be great,” Bucky intones nasally, mimcking the boss from Office Space. “Mmm. Really important family event? Sounds great. But, uh, somebody’s gotta be chained to this coffee machine.” Bucky slaps the sleek, black gadget. “So if you could just go ahead and do that, it’d be grrr-eat.”

“I’m gonna stab you,” Darcy says, turning the monitor off to fake-scowl at him. Her lips are twitching into a smile though, so Bucky figures it’s safe to hold his arms out to her. She ducks into the hug gratefully, her nose squished up to his chest. “You’re a good friend,” she mumbles.

“I’m a shit friend, Darcy, but your perspective is fucked because we spend 35 hours a week together.”

“That’s also true.” She laughs wetly and pats at his arms before pulling away. “Let’s run away and get married?”

“As soon as Pierce approves the PTO,” Bucky answers with a charming smile, bopping her on the nose. “So, never.” It’s a joke with more than an edge to it, but it doesn’t quite sting, not when it’s Darcy on the other end of it.

It’s not technically legal for them to get married, even if Bucky did like girls. Betas can’t marry Omegas, not when the latter’s population is in decline.

Omegas, for better or worse, belong with ( _to_ ) Alphas. That law passed in 2000, a slap to the face after the progression of the mid-90s, a movement spearheaded by a fierce Air Force pilot who’d lost her mate in a tragic accident.

(What was even more shocking was the news in 2004, when Capt. Marie Rambeau revealed that her mate had been _another Alpha._ Bucky had clipped out the newspaper article and kept it pinned to his wall, something that had made his mother smile and shake her head every time she saw it)

There’s another wave of customers, and Bucky’s finally, finally able to hang up his apron at eleven to take his hour break. He only has to be here in the afternoon to set up for tomorrow’s bakes, and he high-fives Peter with physical relief when the college sophomore offers up his hand.

“Later, gator,” Peter shouts at his back.

“I refuse to respond to that,” Bucky says, the front door slamming shut behind him. He turns right and heads east, away from the monolith of Avengers Tower rising up behind him, and when he waves through the window, Darcy flips him the bird from behind the counter. Bucky grins and shakes his head, slipping his headphones in and his hood up, losing himself in the crowd and his favorite album.

**

Steve Rogers is never fucking going back to Starbucks again. He decides this as he sweeps through Manhattan after a disastrous SHIELD meeting that left him with a pounding headache that will only be fixable by the largest pot of strong coffee he can get his hands on.

He’s tried every goddamn Starbucks in two mile radius of the Tower. It’s not that he hates Starbucks - the decor is … confusingly charming, and the logo is … confusingly mermaid-esque (something that Tony blames on the “Furries,” which is something that Steve thinks is a Thing He Definitely Shouldn’t Google) - it’s that every person he’s encountered so far has recognized him.

Recognizing leads to conversation and conversation leads to rude questions, and rude questions lead to Steve putting finger-shaped dents in the metal bottoms of the confusingly charming tables at Starbucks. The baristas he’s come across don’t even ask for his fucking name, for Christ’s sake. They just assume, and put Captain Rogers, or Steve, or even worse, Captain Hot-Ass, on his cup, and Steve has to smile and take his coffee with a bright grin and a promise to come back the next day.

It’s a promise he’s never kept.

He could just drink coffee at the Tower, he rationalizes. Tony did buy all those coffee types for Clint, and Clint is - he does the calculations rapidly - 80% coffee at this point in his adrenaline-fueled life, so it can’t be half-bad coffee (or, Clint’s tastes are just that undiscerning in his quest for caffeine).

But, his therapist has been urging him to _try new things,_ and _change up the scenery a little_ , probably in response to him trying to fight an entire horde of AIM zombie-robots by himself with no back-up, six days after he helped put Peggy Carter in the ground, so Steve’s cursed to wander Midtown, trying to find a coffee place that doesn’t make him want to yeet right off this mortal coil, to borrow a phrase from Kate.

The tiredness has sunk deep into his bones, and it’s not helped by the recent conclusion of his rut, a rut he’d passed entirely by himself, gritting his teeth and refusing to touch his knot. Ruts are still vaguely odd to him, after almost twelve years of unsuccessful ruts with no knot to speak of, not until Erksine’s experiment had left him a hot-blooded, full-bodied, hormone-fueled Alpha with an Irish Catholic’s guilt complex and the self-control of a Great Depression survivor.

So yeah, with his best girl in the ground, and the knowledge that the United States Government, and the people it serves, will never want to hear about his love for that girl (and it’s bullshit, utter bullshit that he died for this fucking world and buried himself in a metric shit ton of ice just to wake up in the future and hear that it was still illegal for an Alpha to love another Alpha), Steve’s feeling tense, and tense didn’t exactly equate to “masturbate furiously and pretend you aren’t terribly, crushingly lonely” during his last rut.

Nat had coolly offered to find him someone to pass the rut with, without provocation, and Steve had bared his teeth and growled once, a warning, and she hadn’t flinched, but she also hadn’t brought it up since, either. She’d been kind enough to suggest a coffee place, though, weeks ago, and Steve considers finally taking her up on it.

 _Soldat,_ she’d said, and Steve snorts when he reads the full title displayed on the Yelp page. _Le Soldat d’Hiver._ Fuckin’ pretentious was what it was.

But, the coffee was apparently decent - Clint had managed a grunt when asked to confirm - and the baked goods, per the Yelp reviews and Nat’s complimentary “ _Pretty solid,_ ” were worth a stop.

Steve pushes the door open right around noon, and is surprised to discover the place fairly empty, other than a few customers taking up the tables in the seating area. It’s a good building, with clear lines of sight throughout, straight through to the kitchen, which has no door and instead allows customers to see how spotless yet inviting the area is.

The exposed brick is a nice touch, Steve thinks, eyeing the way it slants upwards and joins with a ceiling about eight feet above his head; the spring sunlight streaming in through the window casts a lovely glow on the whole establishment, and Steve tilts his head back and breathes deeply. He’s walloped by the smell of _home,_ of vanilla and molasses and maybe, just maybe, soda bread; he wants to roll in it, this perfect smell, and it isn’t even out of lust.

It’s longing that courses in his blood.

Still, though, he’s been standing here like a total oddity for the last minute, and the girl behind the counter is eyeing him; she doesn’t recognize him yet, which means the baseball hat and beard really do work, but she will in a second.

“One Cafe Latte and a triple shot of espresso,” Steve says, eyeing the menu and pulling out his wallet. “And whatever’s good.” He gestures vaguely at the pastry case, and the girl squints at him. Her eyes widen, finally recognizing him, and his stomach clenches uncomfortably. Then, she seemingly shrugs and sets a hand on top of the pastry case, eyeing it thoughtfully. Steve mirrors her body language, over-relieved at her lack of reaction.

“I had a croissant this morning,” she reports, her accent more DC than New York. “They’re worth shitting a brick over. But, if you don’t like overly sweet things…” She taps her fingers on the glass and waits for him to say something.

“I do, but, I also don’t?” He flails, trying to figure out how to say. “Things are too sweet nowadays.”

“Big Sugar, my man. Big. Sugar.” The girl - Darcy, according to her nametag - huffs and squints at something closer to her side of the case. “You like frangipane?”

“I do.” Steve smiles at her, bouncing with the energy that hadn’t quite dissipated on his fifteen minute walk over here. He’d have to up the miles at the gym tomorrow, as the fifteen he’d run before the meeting started clearly weren’t enough.

Steve doesn’t think there’d ever be enough miles for him to run before he can actually stand Secretary Ross, that smug, smirking, irritating piece of sh-

“It’s got apricots in it,” Darcy announces, hefting the pastry out and setting it on top. “And it’s killer. And _someone won’t give me the recipe._ ”

“He can’t hear you,” the younger kid working the coffee notes, sliding the latte towards Steve. “Lemme get your espresso, sir.”

“Sir?” Darcy turns around and raises her eyebrows. “Jesus, Parker, he’s barely older than we are.”

The kid shrugs unapologetically with a bright grin and goes back to preparing the drinks.

“That’ll be 11.58,” Darcy reports, clacking her manicured nails against the register. Steve forks it over in cash and eagerly accepts the pastry box Darcy hands him. The smile she hands him is sheer irreverence, her nose quirked up playfully. It’s a nice smile, he decides.

“Thanks, Darcy.”

“You’re welcome …” She holds her hand out, eyebrow raised, waiting for him to introduce himself.

He loves his place.

“Steve.” He takes her hand and shakes once. “You can call me Steve.”

After collecting his drinks and scurrying over to the window, Steve gives himself five minutes to just absorb the pleasantly bustling atmosphere of Soldat. Parker (first name: Peter, apparently) and Darcy give each other shit half-heartedly, and it provides a good background to Steve’s people watching from the window. The customers are multifarious, and start stacking up again about three minutes after he sits down.

His eyes train on one figure in particular, and he isn’t sure why - wearing a hooded sweatshirt, left hand tucked into the pocket, the guy slips in with the rush and disappears in the back. Another employee, then. Steve’s comms chirp irritatingly, and he stands with a sigh.

Before he leaves, right as he’s throwing away his cup, Darcy squawks in indignation.

“James! Did you steal my pen again?” She’s patting around the counter, only a little flustered by the long queue at the register.

Steve snorts, and is about to tell her where her pens are, when, from the back, a warm, low voice answers.

“Did you check your hair, honeybun?”

“Why the _hell_ would it be in my” - Darcy pats her bun and then shrugs with an, “ _Oh._ Anyway. When do you need your three dozen croissants by?”

Steve’s pushing the door open again when he hears a shout of “Three dozen _what_?” in that warm, rough voice from before, and he snorts to himself while he heads west towards the Tower.

He’s pretty sure he’ll be returning to the little coffee shop sooner rather than later.

That decision is solidified around three p.m. when he settles into the couch in the living room of his floor, having been caught up by a phone call from Tony, and props his feet up on the coffee table. He balances the frangipane he’d bought from Soldat on his lap and clicks the lid open.

It’s gorgeous, even prettier than it’d been in the display case. The apricots glisten among the pastry, and a fine icing decorates the top, having been applied by an even but generous hand. Steve inhales deeply, something in him twitching at the scent. He must be hungrier than he’d thought, despite managing to eat three breakfasts, two lunches, and six protein bars.

Steve’s pretty sure he’s a fuckin’ Hobbit by this point.

He digs into the frangipane tart eagerly, coming away with a healthy bite on his fork. It’s silly, how _happy_ he feels right now, how content, how right. It’s just pastry. Steve wasn’t kidding when he said most of today’s food was too sweet for him. But still - he pops the fork into his mouth, expecting to be vaguely pleased by treat.

Instead, it explodes across his taste buds and races to the back of his mouth where it sets his throat on fire; Steve’s world narrows down to the taste of the tart - vanilla, and spice, and _something that’s definitely not food_ something not quite like sunshine, but more like sunshine cutting across frost on a winter’s morning- and he almost drops the rest of the precious, precious frangipane on the floor, like the foolish, clumsy oaf of an Alpha that he is.

_Omega made this. Omega made us food. Omega made -_

His knot presses against the zipper of his khaki pants, immediate and urgent and obscene. He hasn’t even touched himself, and his veins are racing with a fire he’s never felt before, an inferno that’s threatening to swallow him whole, something in his mind that doesn’t quite have a voice _screaming_ for it, screaming for more, screaming for _mate, mate, must find mate_ -

An hour later, after he’s masturbated over and over again until his knot shows even the slightest sign of deflation, Steve stands in the shower, shaking slightly from the still-echoing call of _mate, mate, mate_ -

He’ll be going back to Soldat. That’s for damn sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The apricot frangipane tart that Bucky makes (and accidentally seduces Steve with) can be found [here](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/recipes/11447572/Mary-Berrys-apricot-frangipane-tart-recipe.html)
> 
>  
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the first chapter! Expect some light-hearted misunderstandings and cuteness for our boys (again, this is a long winded apology for all the angst I threw in to the second half of What's Left)
> 
> Also, there doesn't _need_ to be smut in this, at all. It's rated M currently for references to masturbation and heat/rut cycles; but, if you all wanted the smut ... you just have to let me know.


	2. Devonshire Scones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Bucky meet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your lovely support so far; our boys finally meet in this chapter! Also, I heard what you had to say, so I'm preemptively upping this to a rated E fic. Smut will happen, eventually.
> 
> No new warnings for this chapter, other than ABO dynamics, as usual.

Another day, another 3:45 wake-up. Bucky grumbles to himself as he slouches down the street, clutching the straps of his backpack. He’s planning on implementing an IV of coffee today when he arrives to work, Lorelai Gilmore-style; typically, he isn’t even this tired, as he’s fully adjusted to the early hours that come with baking, but he hadn’t been able to sleep more than a few hours last night.

Something strange had settled into his skin yesterday, when he got back from lunch. Not quite a headache, but something pressing against the inside of his skull all the same. It was almost how he felt before a heat, but that wouldn’t be right, as the suppressants he’s been taking, the good shit from insurance, ensure that he won’t go into heat more than three times a year, and even those are chemically scheduled.

So, it must be spring fever or something else in the air that’s making him feel so restless, like he’s missed something important.

When he lets himself into Soldat, through the back door, he pauses and tilts his head. Something still - no. That’s not right. He sniffs delicately and then wrinkles his nose.

Pierce had sent the cleaning crew by last night, obviously. The whole place smells sterile and wrong, like sharp disinfectant. Bucky’s nose feels more blunted than usual - and it’s pretty blunted by his suppressants - and his fingers itch to get to baking, to remove some of the tacky neutrality from the air.

He sets out the processors and baking sheets and tins, as well as his flour and sugar and milk and eggs,  and ties his hair up into a bun. Then, he rolls up his sleeves to the elbow and scrubs his hands thoroughly, making sure to slip the smaller sponge in between the metal plates of his left hand and forearm. Drying his hands quickly, Bucky begins to mix the ingredients for the pastries.

In his fit of insomnia last night, he’d watched Pride and Prejudice - the good one, from ‘95, not the one with too much touching between an unmated Alpha and Omega in the 1700’s - so he’s feeling scones this morning.

He measures out a solid amount of milk and adds it to his beaten eggs, then pours it carefully and slowly to his dry mixture, sifting his fingers through it here and there, before he sets aside the measuring cup for the wet ingredients and mixes it all together. When the mix is decently wet and sticky, he slaps it out on the table and rolls it out, squatting to check that the thickness of the dough is uniform.

He’s humming something to himself as he works, but it isn’t a song he recognizes. It’s odd - Bucky does enjoy baking, as much as he hates his job, but he’s never felt this content while baking. Almost like he’s doing this to prove something to someone. His heart thuds in his chest as he stamps out the circles for the scones, and it’s like he’s forgotten something. He pauses and squints at the opposite wall, the one emblazoned with the coffee shop’s logo, and then remembers that he needs to check how much strawberry jam they have left.

Who wants scones without jam? Disgusting.

After he has most of the ovens on, and most of his morning’s labors in the ovens, or setting in the fridge, Bucky cleans his metal arm again, glowering at the dough that sticks between the plates. “Gross,” he mutters, using his flesh elbow to shut off the water.

It’s been years since the accident, and Bucky hasn’t really hated his arm for the last few years, since his therapist had helped him through it. But, all the same, he wonders if an Alpha’s ever going to be able to look past the fact that he has it. Or past the fact that he’s depressed. And has PTSD. Or -

_Why does he give a flying fuck what an Alpha would think?_

Bucky frowns, unused to that line of thinking. Sure, he’d enjoyed flirting with Alphas when he was younger, and a few of them had been inappropriately into the fact that he’s broken - wanted to fix him, take care of him, and then never called him again - but it’s been almost three years since he’s been knotted, and Bucky can’t say he exactly misses the way they paw at him, make him feel like nothing more than a receptacle for all their Alpha needs.

 _Ugh_.

Who gives a flying fuck what Alphas think.

Bucky returns to his station to finish with the last round of pastries, and if he wields his rolling pin a little more vindictively than before, well. He’s only human.

Darcy can  sense his mood the second she walks in, and she frowns at him while he bustles around behind the counter.

“Do you…” She clears her throat awkwardly. “Want me to help calm you down? Or is this something you just gotta work through on your own?”

Bucky grunts and doesn’t answer right away.

“On your own then.” She nods and scoots past him, heading to the register to count down the tray before they open the doors, and he catches her elbow before she can leave.

“Help. Please,” he spits out, bristling slightly at imagined slights by Alphas who don’t have faces in his mind, and he doesn’t even care about, anyway. Darcy sets her small hands on either side of his neck, cool fingertips pressing into the secondary glands under his jaw, and she smiles at him kindly.

A second later, relief passes through his system, the calming hormones coursing through his body from Darcy’s patient application of her skills as a Beta; Betas can calm stressed Omegas and help to block Alpha pheromones during an unwanted surge. They’re useful, and they’re also not beholden to their biology in the same way the other two designations are.

Bucky curses every possible deity that he wasn’t born a Beta.

He’s calm enough when they unlock the doors, and he even manages a real, tired smile at the first customer, a harried looking schoolteacher clutching a workbag to her chest defensively.

“What can I get you today?”

**

Steve takes a deep breath and walks into Tony’s lab, smoothing out the button down shirt he’d spent fifteen minutes picking. The inventor has his visor on, blasting away at something, and Steve waits anxiously, wringing his hands as the smell of melting metal mixes with mated Omega.

Tony smells nice - Steve doesn’t feel bad saying that, not when it isn’t sexual (but _Gosh_ had it been when they’d met, as Tony hadn’t really seen Pepper in a few weeks, and it was before she had fully claimed him) - like slightly burnt sugar and firewood. Right now, he seems particularly cheerful, a happy Omega scent filling the lab, but Steve’s not really in the mood to be sent away by one of Tony’s jabs.

Things had been so messy at the beginning, when the Avengers had been cobbled together willy nilly; Fury clearly had no concept of elegance, shoving an essentially newly presented Alpha together with a snarky, angry Omega, two people who both desperately wanted to be in control for different reasons.

Add in the oddities that were the rest of the team - Bruce, who was Beta when human, something a little _past_ Alpha when the Hulk, Clint, a Beta with a tendency to act like an Omega with his habits of nesting, Nat, who didn’t smell like anything but still wasn’t a Beta, and Thor, whose dimension didn’t even have this “curious human biology” - and Fury had a recipe for disaster. The first two years were rough, as Tony kept insulting Steve (as a show of affection, he’d come to find), causing the Alpha to literally retreat and nurse the wounds left. Fear had made Steve mean in response, and they’d broken down more often than they’d gotten back up.

Pepper’s constant intervention and guiding hand had helped; Tony had mellowed out, and so had Steve, so they’re all friends now in the present. Nothing like saving the world over fifteen times to bring a group of people together, and the weekly team dinners are nice as well.

Tony flips up the visor unexpectedly, startling Steve out of his anxious thoughts.

“What’s up, Cap?”

“Tony.” Steve nods respectfully, averting his eyes, the way a good Alpha greets a mated Omega. Then, he remembers it’s 2016, not 1936, and he lets himself look at Tony. The man’s waiting patiently and doesn’t tease him. Steve relaxes, releasing some of the tension that’s causing him to slightly vibrate. “Um. Do I look nice?”

Tony tilts his head curiously. “You have a very trustworthy face. I’d say it was the serum, but it’s basically the one thing that didn’t change.”

“Not the only thing,” Steve protests, and Tony smirks. “No. Not like - God. I meant my _hands_ , Tony. My hands and my feet.”

“I know, I’m just joking.” Tony rolls his eyes and picks up a microtool, muttering to himself as a lens protracts from an earpiece and fits in front of his eye so he can peer more closely at his project. “So touchy.”

(Tony knows, of course, from his father’s notes, that everything else - and that means _everything else_ \- had changed after the experiment. Steve had never popped a knot before the serum, for instance. And then there was the matter of girth --)

“Stop stressing about your Super-Penis and tell me why you’re asking if you look like a nice person when everyone in the free world, and outside of it, knows that you do.”

“I didn’t mean nice like that.” Steve writhes and averts his eyes again. Maybe he should have asked Pepper to be here for this. She’s a very kind person, and only asserts her status as Alpha in very quiet (still potent) ways, but Steve respects her too much to let her think he’s trying to -

No. 2016. Tony’s his own person. Let it go. Pepper does not care because Pepper is progressive. And Steve, Steve is progressive. Just afraid of upsetting the balance of his team. He can do this.

“I meant. Do I look like a Nice …. Alpha?”

Tony blinks, and the lens retracts rapidly when he stares at Steve. His eyes linger on the way the button down strains slightly across Steve’s chest, and at the hems of his khakis, which do stop about an inch too soon to be fashionable. Tony’s expression is unreadable, and Steve’s skin crawls nervously while he waits for him to say something.

“You look very nice.” Steve nods and fights back a happy, pleased smile, bouncing on his feet for a different reason now. “...Can I ask why?”

“Why? Uh - no reason.”

“Trying to impress an Omega?” Tony guesses. Right in one. He nods before Steve can answer and hums to himself. “That’s cute.”

“I haven’t even met them, I just -” Steve wilts and sighs. “But yeah.”

“Cute, cute, cute.” Tony goes back to picking at his project, doesn’t even look up when he asks, “Did you ask me because I’m the only Omega you know?”

“Uhhhh…” Steve trails off, his face on fire. He’s a terrible Alpha, really. What other Alpha is cursed with blushing this much? He’s supposed to be confident, damnit, and he is, in a battle. But in terms of his personal life? Well ...  Steve thinks he’s what Wanda would call a ‘hot mess,’ most likely with a sympathetic pat to his arm.

“That’s okay. I’m also the smartest Omega you know. Smartest Omega there is, to be fair, so even if you knew like, a hundred Omegas, I’d still be the smartest one.”

“You’re very smart,” Steve says graciously, happy to compliment Tony back now. “Smartest guy I know.” He specifically leaves designation out of it, because it’s true - across any designation, Tony’s got the world beat.

Tony honest to God preens, and he smiles down at this project, eyes crinkling. “Get out of here before you make me blush.” Steve heads for the elevators, stopping briefly when Tony calls out. “Change your pants though. FRIDAY, send jeans up to Captain Rogers’s room, please?”

[“You got it, boss.”]

Thirty minutes later, Steve sets his shoulders and marches through Midtown Manhattan, baseball cap and sunglasses in place. He gets a few curious stares from other pedestrians, who no doubt are trying to figure out just who he looks like, but he’s also emanating the scent and aura of an Alpha On A Mission, so he gets a wide berth from Betas and Alphas alike. The few Omegas he passes, identifiable by their sweet, gentle smells, don’t avoid him, but do spend the most time staring at him.

The world is _still_ overwhelming, had been since he woke up to a kaleidoscope of color and noise and smell, and even now he’s drowning in the smell of the Alphas and the Omegas, helping him spot them all eighty feet away; there’s the neutral spots created by Betas, all mingling with the typical smells of the city - it’s busy busy busy in Steve Rogers’s head, and he can never figure a way out from underneath it all. He’s finally axed the urge to tilt his head back and scent a new area when he enters it -- it had been helpful in the war, that he could smell enemy combatants who were hiding well before they ambushed them, but it’s not polite, now, to scent anywhere or anything without permission.

Makes Omegas uncomfortable. Steve understands that. He really does. And they’re vulnerable, still so damn vulnerable, thanks to those heinous bills passed in the mid-00s, when Steve was still in ice -- he’s been gearing up for a protest outside the Capitol Building, having finally gained permission from SHIELD to reveal his political leanings on the stance of Omega Rights. Steve doesn’t like it when governments make their people feel vulnerable, especially when it’s based on who they are.

He’d been the son of a poor, Irish, Omega immigrant, after all. The lack of support that existed back then -- _welfare_? For an Omega who’d chosen to remain single after her Alpha had died? Who insisted on working and not finding a new mate? Unthinkable! - had killed Sarah Rogers. It’s obscene that things are only a little better for Omegas now, and Steve’s ready to fight the world.

The pace he sets is a little too ambitious because suddenly he’s at Soldat, and he hasn’t even figured out what he’s supposed to say. He waits a few minutes, shaking his hands out, as some patrons exit the shop, trying to compose something halfway inteligible.

_I think my soulmate works here._

Intense and abrupt.

_I think my soulmate made some pie yesterday? Good pie. Great pie. The best pie. Liked it._

Intense and just bad.

_Hi, my name is Steve America, and -_

Fuck him.

Steve surrenders any chance at being normal and shoves the door to the shop open. It’s precisely eleven a.m., and there’s no line in front of the register. This is it.

The moment.

The pretty girl from yesterday is here again today - Darcy, she’d had a nice smile, and maybe it was her? She’d seemed perfectly lovely, but Steve hadn’t caught any indicator from her of her designation.

There are health code laws, though, about people in the food industry having to be on incredibly strong suppressants and blockers. It makes sense; don’t want to seduce your clientele by accident.

_Isn’t that what happened here?_

Somehow, his traitorous feet have walked him up to the counter while he internally screamed at himself for making a terrible life choice.

_He should have worn the plaid shirt. Why is he wearing blue?_

Darcy lifts a perfectly shaped eyebrow at him. “Sir? Can I help you?”

She must have already asked that. Shit. This is already going bad.

“I came here yesterday,” Steve says.

“Yes, you did.” Darcy smiles at him, her eyes still teasing. “Steve, right?”

“Steve.” He nods, happy that she knows his name. There’s none of that happy-Alpha to it, though. But still - “Did you make the frangipane?”

“Nope.” Darcy taps her fingers on the counter and smirks at him. “Didn’t I even tell you that I didn’t have the recipe?”

Right. Shit. She did do that.

“Uhhh - yeah.” Steve ducks his head and blushes. “I was wondering if I could -”

An Alpha, who’d entered the shop approximately thirteen seconds ago, coughs and mutters something about _Christ, in public?_ and exits the shop.

“Sorry.” His blush deepens; his face must be on the surface of the sun, it’s so warm. “I’m doing this all wrong.”

“You want to meet the baker?” Darcy guesses, and Steve nods, relieved that she’s figured it out.

“Yes. If that’s possible. I want to tell them -” Steve flounders again, but it’s probably better if he’s honest, right? “I think their … scent was in the dough.”

Darcy turns beet red, and Steve curses his utter lack of tact. He holds his hands up and feels his shoulders lift, towards his ears, as he writhes. “No - no, no, I’m not - I’m not mad. I’m really not mad.”

She squints at him and tilts her head. “You’re not getting anywhere near him if you’re going to be creepy about it.”

“Not creepy.” Steve pinches the bridge of his nose. In the back of his head, though, he’s thinking _he! Omega is a he! Mate is a he!_ “I know there’s … no reason for you to trust me, but I promise, I just want to talk to … him. A few minutes. Please?”

Darcy stares at him, and it feels like he’s caught in one of Doctor Doom’s famous death rays; it’s a scalding look, and she rolls her eyes after a second. “Fuck it. You smell earnest.” Steve winces, and she points a finger at him. “Nope. You don’t get to call me rude. Not when you scented my best friend through a fucking piece of frangipane.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve mumbles, and she snorts.

“I actually believe you.” Darcy reaches into the pastry case and pulls out a scone. She sets it on a napkin and slides it across the counter. “Here. He made these this morning. Maybe you should have it, considering you liked the last one so much.” Her eyes twinkle with barely contained mirth before she disappears into the back of the coffeeshop.

Steve picks up the scone with a curious sniff, and he can’t pick up on the same delicious, vanilla-and-cold-morning scent, not until he brings it right up to nose and inhales again.

Bad choice, bad bad bad - Steve drops the napkin and pockets the scone hastily, which is the stupidest thing he’s ever done, right up there with _come to this shop with zero battle plan,_ and _smell something that had the potential to get him hard in public seconds before he meets his soulmate._

Something clatters, loudly, from the back of the shop, and Darcy ducks back through, grinning sheepishly. “You get three minutes,” she hollers, scooting back behind the counter. “No weapons.”

“Weapons?” Steve’s still trying to tuck the scone fully into his pocket, a task Darcy watches with intense, unconcealed amusement. “Shit - I don’t - I don’t carry weapons.”

“I know you don’t.” Darcy raises her eyebrows and rests her elbows on the counter next to the register. “You gonna pay for that?”

“Of course.” He pats his pocket before he remembers that he wants to die of mortification. His wallet is in the same pocket as the -

“Never mind.” Darcy waves a hand. “Clock’s ticking, after all.”

Steve rushes towards the kitchen before he turns into an actual puddle of nerves on the floor of the coffeeshop, and almost trips on his too large feet when he screeches to a halt.

 _Beautiful_.

He’d known, logically, that an Omega that had a scent like that would be beautiful, but nothing could prepare him for the sight of him.

Tall, but a solid five inches shorter than Steve, willowy but strong; tight fitting red henley with sleeves rolled up to the elbow, showing off a fit body and, interestingly enough, a metal arm that works alongside its flesh partner with an organic ease that Steve wants to study, and maybe even draw, if he lets him.

Cool, blue eyes, almost grey, study him right back, and there’s a hint of red in those perfect cheekbones when the Omega shrugs and then points to the floor in front of his work station, eyes returning to the dough he’s rolling out.

“You. Here. Now.”

Steve follows the order immediately, floating through space towards the beautiful Omega.

“So.” The man doesn’t pause in rolling out his dough as he speaks, and his lovely, warm voice is the one Steve heard yesterday; the man who’d pushed in with the afternoon rush had been this lovely, amazing, talented Omega all along. Steve could sing, or kick himself, or both. They’d been so close. “You _think_ you scented me. Through my frangipane.”

“Yes,” Steve breathes.

“I wasn’t done.” The man pauses, finally, and sets his rolling pin down on the work table; he doesn’t let go of it. He plants his other, metal hand firmly on the table and scowls at Steve, who’s taken aback by the expression. “Do you know how fuckin’ crazy that sounds?”

Steve’s heart explodes with joy -- he’d had his suspicions before, but now it’s undeniable. That’s a Brooklyn drawl.

_Omega is from Brooklyn! Omega really is perfect! Omega probably hates the Yankees too!_

“I have a very good sense of smell,” Steve reports proudly, glad to tell the truth, glad to provide clarity to the Omega asking for it.”

“I’m sure. Mhm. _Sureee_.” The man rolls his eyes.

“What’s your name?” He blurts it out without thinking, and the Omega scowls.

“So can report me?” The man snaps, and Steve flinches.

“Report - you?”

He would _never_ \- report an Omega, trying to make a living for himself? For his designation?

_Steve is the worst. Awful. Terrible. Bad Alpha, confusing Omega like this -_

“Look, _pal_ , I’ve _never_ had a complaint about my scent being in any baked goods, you got me? I don’t need the health department down here, breathing down everyone’s neck just because you wanted to ruin some Omega’s day.”

“I didn’t.” Steve holds his hand out pleadingly, praying that it makes him look meek and small, and not terrifying. “I swear I didn’t.”

“Mhm. So you think you have a _valid_ complaint about my scent being in this food?’

“It’s not a complaint.” Will the floor _never_ swallow him whole? “It was … um... “

“What?”

“We’re...I think we might be…”

“What.” The baker scowls even more deeply, a line forming between his slanted eyebrows. He looks ferocious. Like an avenging angel. He’s half-rage, half-beauty, and he’s standing up to an Alpha who easily has ninety pounds on him.

_Perfect Omega. Perfect._

“Compatible.” Steve smiles hopefully, and then, it all comes crashing down.

The other man points at the exit. “Get the fuck out of here.”

“Y-yeah. Okay. Um. Sorry. Have a nice day.” Steve wants to cry, but he also wants to get out of the Omega’s space if he’s making him uncomfortable. The smell of vanilla in the air sours, and it’s because of Steve’s distress.

He sprints for the door, nodding at Darcy in thanks that she’d even let him look upon that perfect, amazing Omega from Brooklyn, and pushes through the door. Before he’s ten feet down the block, his ears can pick up on her voice, raised and irritated.

“Bucky! What the fuck did you do?”

_Omega’s name is Bucky._

And Bucky hates Steve.

Great.

**

Bucky stomps out to glower at his best friend. “What the fuck did _I_ do? What the fuck did _you_ do?”

Darcy is fuming behind the register, hands on her hips. Thank God there’s no one else in the shop right now; they aren’t exactly being quiet as they shout, and the smell of distressed, sad Alpha hangs in the air enough to make Bucky feel sick to his stomach with a sense of wrongness, a feeling that just makes him more irritated.

“Can you tell me why Captain America just ran out of here with his tail between his legs?”

 _Captain_ -

“Funny, Darce.” She’s still giving him a strange look. “That wasn’t Captain America.” Her lips twitch. Frustrating. “It wasn’t! Captain America doesn’t have a beard!”

“Oh, honey. Give it a second, Bucky Bear.”

Bucky thinks about it. And thinks about it. And thinks -

_Shit. Shit shit shit shit._

“Oh, God. Oh, God, oh God, Oh God. I just accused Captain America of being a bigoted creeper. I just kicked him out of our shop.” Bucky rubs his temples, the headache that’s been building through the night and all through the morning now screaming at him. “Oh motherfucking perfect--”

He’d just thought he was hot. With the body dimensions of a Dorito. And annoyingly pretty blue eyes.

“He wanted to ask you out, asshole!” Darcy’s torn between amusement and incredulity, and that’s what has Bucky snapping back to reality.

“Yeah. By my _scent._ He doesn’t know anything about me!”

“He’s from 1940, Bucky, cut him some slack. That _was_ normal courtship practice back then, and he’s been thawed, what, less than five years?” Bucky groans, throwing his hands in the air. Darcy doesn’t understand. She doesn’t. She means well, and she loves Bucky, but she doesn’t _get_ the humiliation of being singled out from your designation.

“Did he leave when you asked him to?” Darcy crosses her arms in front of her chest with a smirk.

Bucky pauses in his grumpy thoughts and nods. “The second I did, yeah.”

“Would a normal Alpha trying to take advantage of you do that?”

“...No.” He scowls at the floor, grinding his heel against the linoleum. “I guess not. But - he kept saying we were compatible. That’s so...personal. What an inappropriate thing to say to someone you’ve never met.”

“I mean.” Darcy sighs and scrunches up her nose, the face she makes when she _knows_ she’s about to say something inappropriate, but is figuring out how to exactly that anyway. “...Did you scent him back?”

“What? No! This is 2016, I’m not an animal.”

Darcy sighs and grabs something off the counter, holding it out to him. It’s a crumpled napkin. “He left this behind, right before you yelled at him and he ran away crying.”

“He wasn’t crying,” Bucky mutters, more than a little worried that he made Captain America, a war hero and general Good Person cry. “Don’t look at me when I do this,” he snaps at Darcy, who rolls her eyes and turns around. Reluctantly, he sniffs the napkin, something that the Captain had probably barely touched. He’s expecting to get more of the sour, sad Alpha smell, the one that’s still lingering in the air -- or, more likely, nothing at all.

Instead, he gets walloped by what feels like a brick made of Solid Alpha. It’s a smell not unlike the city, if the city was clean, after a rainfall - metal and earth stirred together with something that almost hums with power. It smells like home. It smells like more than home. It smells like -

He shifts uncomfortably, slick pooling unexpectedly against his skin, in a way it shouldn’t given the way he’s bogged down by chemical suppressants at the moment. There’s only one explanation -

“Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck fucker,” he curses with none of his usual creativity, dragging his metal hand through his hair in anxiety. “Shit.” He sags against the pastry case, banging his head slowly and rhythmically against the glass.

“Mhm.” Darcy turns back around to shake her head at him disapprovingly. “You just turned down the man who could have given you superbabies.”

Bucky groans, adrift in his irritation ( _why does he even fucking care if he chased his potential mate away, he doesn’t want a mate_ ) and grief ( _he chased his potential mate away, no, no no no, Sad Alpha, he made Alpha sad_ ).

“Unlike every other wide-eyed Omega in their twenties, Lewis, I don’t have pup fever.” He bangs his head against the case again, a contradictory punctuation to his statement.

“You cried yesterday because we saw a double wide stroller,” she reminds him callously, her voice far too amused for Bucky’s state of despair. He lifts his head and scowls at her.

“Darcy! There were ! Two! Babies! In the same stroller! I’m not _heartless_.”

“Mhm.” She pats him on the shoulder reassuringly. “Go take your lunch break before you cry all over the croissants.”

He pushes himself into an upright heap of misery and heads outside; before he turns and heads towards his usual park, he looks west, towards Avenger Tower, and sighs like some stupid Omega in an Romance novel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recipe for the scones Bucky makes can be found [here](http://www.maryberry.co.uk/recipes/baking/devonshire-scones)
> 
>  
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed Bucky/Steve's first meeting. Don't worry...they'll figure things out...eventually.


	3. Quiche Lorraine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky is sad and makes many quiches; some plot happens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings**  
>  Comic book style violence in this chapter  
> Head injuries  
> Mention/discussion of blood from said head injuries
> 
>  
> 
>  _Notes_  
>  ** denotes a POV shift
> 
> *** denotes a time jump, but same POV

**_CAPTAIN AMERICA ARRESTED AT OMEGA RIGHTS RALLY_ **

[Image Description]: _S_ _teven Grant Rogers, out of uniform, standing to his full, impressive height of six foot four, massive arms folded in front of even more massive chest, glowering down at four cops who are rushing him. Behind him are a small pack of Omegas, standing to their own, shorter, full heights, clutching signs and pointing up at the White House, screaming something._

Bucky spies the article on his phone as he lets himself into Soldat, some three days after the Captain Alpha Fiasco of 2016.

He almost drops his precious cup of coffee in surprise, and his metal fingers re-tighten their grasp last second while he holds his phone up to his face, cursing in the darkness as he tries to make sense of it. For all of Steve Rogers’s nervousness when talking to a prickly Omega, apparently he had zero issue giving some choice sound bites to reporters, counter protesters and police officers, for instance:

“ _Son, I didn’t die in 1945 for you to be a total [expletive]nut here in 2016_.”

That was said to an ARA who tried to bully an Omega into backing down in front of the White House.

The journalist behind the news article seems to take particular pleasure in the fact that the “ _Alpha Rights Activists fled the scene mere moments after Captain America handed his hand-painted sign, proclaiming ‘OMEGA RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS,’ to another protester and cracked his knuckles. The sound reverberated through the air like so many gunshots, and was only amplified when Captain Rogers cracked his neck for good measure._ ”

Rogers had stopped the spread of suppressant gas released by the riot police, as well. Deeper in the article, there’s a small photo of his eyes streaming, his stance unwavering, his glower fully in place while he lets them poison him, as he’d caught the canister of emergency, aerosolized suppressant, keeping it from reaching the Omegas behind him. There’s a photo right next to it of the captain lobbing the canister back into the ranks of police officers, who, ostensibly, fled, rather than be subject to the painful exposure to chemicals designed for a different designation.

He’d spent the night in jail, apparently, before one Nicholas Fury showed up to bail him out. Bucky flips through his apps to Snapchat and checks the news stories. And, there it is. The top story of _Super Daily_ : a five second video of a red-eyed, grinning Steve Rogers being led down a sidewalk, flanked by men in black wearing sunglasses, giving a wild thumbs up to the various cameras pointed at him.

“ _Where are you going now, Captain Rogers_?”

“ _New York,_ ” Steve shouts back. “ _I have some things to attend to._ ”

Bucky lowers his hand slowly, thinking about what _that_ might mean; on the phone, the video plays on loop, Steve’s rich, pleasant baritone filling the kitchen as though he were here.

He’d thrown the napkin away, of course, because he isn’t a psychopath, but his nose twitches longingly, his glands aching. They’d been aching since Darcy egged him on to scent the damn napkin, and he’d had to take a double dose of suppressant to make sure he was fit to come into work.

He can’t wait for Pierce to hire another baker; then, there won’t be an excuse to keep him on schedule, and he can take his fucking, overdue Heat Leave and work whatever this is out of his system.

Mated Alpha and Omega pairs are rare enough these days, with the Omega population in decline; Bucky hasn’t heard of a legitimate _soulmated_ pair being found in the entire time since he presented at sixteen. They were extinct, and Omegas were endangered; while he certainly responds to Steve Rogers’s scent, there’s no reason to assume that means they’re fully compatible, mind, body, spirit. People aren’t built for each other.

That isn’t how it works.

Still. It’s hard to focus with the thought of Captain America returning to New York, and Bucky shivers despite his lingering doubt, shivers at the thought that _he_ might be that ‘thing’ Rogers needs to ‘attend to.’

He grips the workstation with his metal hand, hard enough to dent, when an image comes to mind, unbidden, of Steve Rogers folding him in half, fucking him from behind, large hand wrapped around Bucky’s cock, or even his throat, rumbling in his ear about how sweet he is, properly _attending_ to his needy little Omega.

Bucky isn’t sweet. He makes sweet food, enjoys eating sweet food, likes it when about three people in this world are sweet to him, but he isn’t sweet.

_He could be sweet for an Alpha like Steve Rogers._

“Bad brain,” Bucky scolds himself, walking to the sink to scrub his hands. “And bad penis.”

He steadfastly tries not to think about Steve Rogers while prepping the food, because the longer he does, the more likely he is to remember sad, blue eyes in that perfect face, some light in them dimming right as Bucky kicked him out of his shop and potentially his life, forever.

If he thinks about that, sadness stains the air, and the bacon he’s crisping, and no matter how many suppressants Bucky is on, the rules go out the window when thinking about a kind Alpha with broad shoulders sprinting away because Bucky’s a bad Omega who can’t figure it out when a potential mate is standing right in front of him. Steve Rogers wasn’t trying to intimidate him - even at the time, Bucky knew that - and, honestly, the man’s a national hero who also finds free time to fight for Omega Rights. He’s a good man, and could have been a good mate if Bucky let down his walls for three fucking seconds and -

Fuck. He fucked this up so badly, and Steve Rogers isn’t coming back to New York to ‘attend’ to Bucky, to attend to his messy, sillly Omega, because Bucky _isn’t_ his Omega. Bucky is alone, and will always be alone, and Steve Rogers will find a different Omega, and Bucky will be alone, sitting in front of his oven, mournfully watching for the egg to set in the pastry, and -

Darcy lets herself in - Bucky hadn’t even locked the back door, in his stupor - and he can feel her eyes on the back of his head.

“Quiche?” She asks, sniffing the air delicately. Bucky’s head and shoulders move in a very non communicative way. “Aw, Bucky-bear, don’t be sad.”

“M not sad,” Bucky mumbles, the tears in his voice betraying him.

“You only make quiche when you’re sad.” Darcy walks across the kitchen and drapes herself over Bucky’s shoulders. Her cold nose rubs against his ear, and he swats at her half-heartedly. “Don’t be sad.”

“I’m going to die alone,” Bucky grumbles, more angry than sad about that fact.

“No you won’t,” Darcy assures him. “We’ll get you a cat.”

Bucky buries his face in his hands and then shakes Darcy off so he can grab the quiches from the oven.

***

Three days later, Bucky’s still making three dozen quiche lorraine every morning, something that Darcy continues to express concern over when she shows up. He can’t even ignore the reason for her concern anymore, not when he struggles to make even the simplest chocolate-based pastry, or a scone, or frangipane.

He sighs in frustration and chucks some mangled dough into the trash, grumbling to himself as he wipes down the station to try again. It’s just about five a.m., and Darcy will be here in a half an hour, and he barely has half the pastry case stocked.

Using his metal hand, he unceremoniously rips a tray of brownies from the oven and throws them onto the prep table near the icing. Bucky grabs a completed, cooled tray of muffins and walks up front, his rolling pin in his free hand. He taps the pin against his leg while he carefully sets the muffins out on display, mind wandering to large hands and blue eyes and thick beards.

Maybe in some parallel universe he didn’t fuck this up, and Bucky’s currently happy, sitting on Steve Rogers’s lap while the Alpha feeds him grapes by hand, or something else decadent. In that universe, Bucky preens while Steve - _great, we’re calling living legends whom we’ve rejected by their first name now, way to go, brain_ \- nuzzles under his jaw, his tongue slipping out to trace the secondary gland that throbs over here in the real universe in response to the image.

It makes him feel drowsy, weirdly enough, the idea that he could be draped over Steve’s lap, maybe his back to Steve’s chest, while the Alpha’s large hands roam his chest; Steve’s voice fills his ears while he murmurs _do you want me to touch you, baby,_ because of course Steve wouldn’t just take, he’d _ask,_ and then he’d _give._

 _If this gets any worse,_ Bucky thinks, _he’ll have to take Darcy up on that offer of getting a cat, because no real Alpha or person will ever stack up to the full-muscle glory of Captain Steve Rogers._

The ground rumbles slightly while he pouts at the display case, his tray now empty, and Bucky blinks slowly, looking out the window. It’s a little early for the trash collection to be coming around, but maybe he’s been daydreaming for longer than he thought.

The ground rumbles again, but this time, in a distinctly not normal way. Bucky doesn’t even have time to walk out from behind the counter before something trailing red and orange flames spirals into view, whizzes past the window, and hits the ground up the block. The glass rattles, as does the entire shop, as an explosion rips through the early morning.

A second later, a dozen demonic robots rumble past Soldat, and Bucky squints at them in confusion before sighing.

It’s a typical midtown-Manhattan morning, and the city is under attack. Again.

“I should have fucking moved to Indiana when I had the goddamn chance,” he mutters to himself, rolling pin limp in his hand.

One of the robots hears him, somehow, and its beady, glowing red eyes fix on him through the window.

“Well, shit.”

**

“Don’t be sad.” Nat dodges the strike easily, ducking under the practice shield and dropping to the ground, small feet sweeping out to knock Steve off his feet.

“I’m not sad.” He grunts when her fist rams into his stomach, surprisingly strong as usual. He spins and tries to catch her next kick, but mostly just gets kicked in the hands. “Damnit.” He shakes his hands out quickly and blocks her next kick more successfully.

“You’re sad.” Nat shakes her foot free and then flips backwards; she grabs a practice knife from her belt and flings it at him, and Steve deflects it with the shield. “You’ve been sad. Did that Omega-”

“What Omega?” Steve growls, freezing in embarrassment. “Did Tony tell you--”

“Tony didn’t tell me anything.” Natasha also stops moving to squint at Steve, a small smirk on her lips. “Didn’t have to. You’ve reeked of it for days now.”

“He’s on suppressants,” Steve snaps defensively, setting his hands on his hips. “There’s no way you could scent him-”

“Not him. You.” Nat cocks her head and studies him. “Or do you have no idea?”

“No idea of what?”

“When I was in the Red Room, learning how to be … whatever they needed me to be…” Nat never really talks in detail about the Red Room, but that small detail confirms one of Steve’s suspicions; somehow, Natasha Romanov was trained to mimic any designation she needed to mimic. “They had us memorize scent markers, and how to respond to them in different contexts. _Your_ smell is all…mixed up, now.”

“What does that mean?” Steve’s shoulders deflate -- if his scent is a mess, maybe that’s why Bucky --

“It means you met your soulmate. Your scent shifted to mirror his, but...his scent isn’t there with yours.” Nat reaches out and pats his arm in what’s clearly meant to be a comforting way. “So, what went wrong?”

He groans and prepares to explain what happened, prepares for Nat’s doubtless censure in response to his mess-up.

Then, the alarm goes off.

“Saved by the bell,” Nat quips, with another annoying smirk, and Steve barely resists the urge to flick her in the head.

Robots, it appears, are taking over Manhattan. Steve cracks his neck and waits for the briefing to end, already itching to go out and _help_ \-- Sam smirks at him as they stand shoulder to shoulder.

“ _What_?” Steve hisses while Fury explains that these robots are from A.I.M., and most likely have the ability to breathe fire.

“How was jail?” Sam asks, full-snark, grinning widely.

“Fuck off,” Steve shoots back, bumping his shoulder into his friend. Sam bumps him right back, and they’re interrupted by Fury clearing his throat.

“Are we interrupting you, gentlemen?” Steve and Sam shake their heads, unable to even pretend to be chagrined, and Fury rolls his eyes and goes back to the briefing. “And, as some of us need to _rehabilitate_ our public image after some ill-advised civil disobedience…” The one-eyed glare sent Steve’s way feels weirdly pointed. “This could be helpful for reminding the public that the Avengers are here to serve.”

“Whatever.” Tony’s visor slips into place. “Just point and we’ll shoot, Fury.”

Steve’s lips twitch into a smile, and he stares at the floor so Fury can’t see him laughing at Tony’s dry, bored tone of voice.

“They’re moving through Midtown at a fairly fast-paced clip.” Fury projects the map onto the wall behind him, and Steve’s blood freezes in his veins. He can’t hear the rest of it, not when there’s live footage of a familiar street under attack.

It’s the street two blocks up from Le Soldat d’Hiver.

“Luckily,” Fury continues, as Steve returns to his body, ruffled fully with fear now. Nat shoots him a sharp look, having picked up on his distress, and Sam gravitates towards him and places a warm, comforting hand on his shoulder. “It’s pretty early. These robots must not have watches because most of Manhattan’s still asleep, or at least, in their homes.”

_Unless they’re a baker._

Steve doesn’t know anything about the handsome, grey-eyed Omega with the metal arm, but he knows about baking, at least, enough to know that their hours are wildly different from most people’s. Bucky could very easily be in the path of those robots.

He turns and runs for the door, ignoring Fury’s shout of protest. There’s the sound of propulsion, and Tony’s at his side, clunking away in his suit.

“You need a lift?” Tony guesses, and Steve nods, fastening his cowl tightly. They burst out of the side entrance of the Tower a minute later, and Tony grabs Steve with a distinct lack of caution, hauling him through the air towards the melee building a few blocks down from their base.

The comms in his ear crackle to life, and Nat greets him in a subtly amused voice. “We’ll meet you boys over there, then?”

“Sounds good, Iron Curtain,” Tony confirms, descending towards the biggest clump of robots, about a kilometer north of Soldat. “Is here good, Cap?”

“Just drop me,” Steve urges him, the Alpha in him simmering under his skin, telling him _danger, danger, protect Omega, protect -_ “C’mon, drop me here, just drop -”

“Calm down, Captain Death Wish.” Tony gets him all the way to the street before dropping him three feet from the ground. Steve takes off in a run, punching through robots already, sending them flying. “Uh, stay out of Cap’s way, guys. He’s on a mission.”

Steve can’t hear whatever his team says, the rage pounding in his ears as he slams through waves of robots, which click and chitter ominously when they see him. He sprints when he can towards the coffee shop, terror making his legs move even faster than normal.

Sure enough, the robots _can_ breathe fire, and he dodges a blast narrowly before flinging his shield at the creation’s head. It severs easily enough, and he recalls the shield using the device Tony had built for him a few years back.

He continues to head through the battle zone, taking out robots here and there, praying that he’ll find Soldat relatively undisturbed with the lights off.

No such luck.

Steve stumbles to a halt when he reaches the shop, its front window smashed open. Lights are on in the back of the shop, and there’s the distinct clicking sound of an engaged robot. Someone yells something, and the voice is familiar, even though Steve’s only heard it twice now, and once, it was yelling at him.

Now it’s yelling at a robot.

“Get the fuck off of me!"

_Omega._

Steve leaps through the smashed window, well aware that he’s leaving his back exposed, and his team high and dry while he runs through this mostly empty coffee shop, but Bucky’s in trouble, and maybe in pain, and his biology takes over every part of his brain as he careens through the open door into the kitchen.

To his relieved amazement, Bucky isn’t in pain at all, or in trouble.

Instead, half a dozen robot carcasses litter the floor, and there’s only one standing. It’s spitting and reaching out towards its target, smoke leaking from the flamethrower in its head, the flamethrower that seems to be out of commission.

And there’s Bucky, in the middle of it all, brandishing a rolling pin like a weapon, hair falling from a messy bun, cheeks flushed from exertion; he spots Steve standing in the doorway, and doubtlessly spots the way hearts are coming out of Steve’s eyes, and it distracts him just long enough that the robot is able to grab him by the arm.

Steve shouts in panic, but Bucky just shakes himself and slams the rolling pin into the robot’s head. He then wrenches his metal arm free from the robot’s grip and uses it to punch straight through the robot’s chest, ripping out a whole lot of wires and parts on its way back out.

With a dispirited hum, the robot powers down and collapses to the floor to join its brethren.

Mystified, enamoured, thrilled, Steve floats forward, towards the brave, perfect man who’s panting, looking around at all the robots he’d just dispatched single-handedly.

“Good Omega,” Steve breathes, unable to stop the praise from slipping out. Bucky looks up, as though he’d forgotten Steve had been standing there.

Then, he whacks Steve in the chest with his rolling pin. Hard.

“My name is Bucky,” he snaps, and Steve again recalls the paintings of avenging angels from the church he’d grown up in, the flourescent lights of the bakery shining off of Bucky’s soft, beautiful hair like a halo while he scowls up at Steve, who, yet again, shoved his ungainly foot in his ungainly mouth.

What Steve does next surprises both of them.

“Bucky,” he whispers reverently, sinking to his knees. He tilts his head back and exposes his throat.

It’s not a posture Alphas usually adopt; only when they’ve been viciously beaten in a formal duel.

It’s the posture typical to Omegas towards their Alphas, a sign of deference and respect. It shows off the glands, after all, as well as important arteries. It makes a person vulnerable, to show their neck like this.

And Steve doesn’t care.

“Bucky,” he repeats, and Bucky stares back down at him, rolling pin still raised, eyes wide. The rolling pin lowers by a fraction of an inch --

\-- And then the bomb goes off.

**

When the smoke and dust settle somewhat, Bucky notices two things.

One: The door to the rest of the shop is blocked by debris, and what’s most likely the remains of the building above the shop. The baking area, as it was added on to the back of Soldat, escaped the collapse of the building, other than the fact that they’re now more or less barricaded in.

Two: Steve Rogers is bleeding from the head. A lot.

“Holy shit.” Bucky drops his rolling pin, rips off his apron and wads it up. “Try not to move.” He presses the fabric against Steve’s hairline, where the blood seems to be flowing from.

The culprit, a large chunk of cement and plaster, sits innocently enough a foot away from Steve’s body.

“You have the prettiest eyes,” Steve says dazedly, his own blue eyes slightly dimmer than they were before the bomb went off.

“Yeah.” Bucky laughs nervously. “Heard that before.”

“And your arm,” Steve continues, head lolling slightly until Bucky catches it with his flesh hand, cradling the back of his neck like he would a newborn infant. He tenses, waiting for Steve to say something cutting in the midst of his head-injury induced delirium. “It’s so pretty too.”

“I don’t like to talk about my arm,” Bucky snaps. At least, he tries to snap. Instead, it comes out as a gentle murmur, while he lifts his apron to survey the damage to Steve’s head. Head injuries bleed a lot, he knows that much, but this still seems like a lot of blood, and there seems to be a bit of skull showing and -

_Alpha is injured._

“Why did you come charging in like that?” Bucky demands, and Steve smiles even though his eyes have fluttered shut.

“Thought you might be in here,” Steve admits, mumbling. “Was worried about you.”

That’s way more flattering than it should be.

“Thought you’d given up on me,” Bucky says, figuring it’s safe to say with Steve halfway out of it. “When you didn’t come back.”

“You told me to go.” Steve frowns and cracks his eyes open. “Shit. I - I didn’t mean to disrespect you or to come back when you told me to leave. I was just - worried about you. Shoulda realized you could handle yourself.”

“I can handle myself.” Bucky squints at him, at this giant pile of contradictions. “But it’s nice that you wanted to help.”

“Yeah?” Steve breathes, looking up at him with a painful amount of hope. “Did good?”

“You did good,” Bucky assures him, patting his (firm, incredible, amazing) chest reassuringly. Steve honest to God hums, his eyes slipping shut again, and Bucky has to try to keep him upright as Steve begins to lie back on the floor. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, nope, not until your head stops bleeding.”

“It’ll stop.” Steve mumbles, his skin slightly grey. “I heal up quick. Don’t worry about me.”

There’s a noise behind the pile of rubble, and Bucky licks his lower lip nervously. “Still, pal. I don’t know if that’s how head injuries work, even when you’re a supersoldier. What if you heal up the wrong way?”

“I’ll be fine,” Steve protests, drooping even more in Bucky’s arms. Bucky is perfectly fit, of course, but he cannot hold up 250 pounds of sleepy supersoldier, especially when they seem to be more stubborn than a toddler being force fed broccoli. So, with the ruckus outside the collapsed part of the building getting louder and louder, he goes for desperate measures.

“Fine. Ugh. Here.” He swaps out his hands and cradles Steve’s head with the metal one. Carefully, gritting his teeth, he holds his real wrist in front of Steve’s nose.

The effect is not instantaneous, because Steve doesn’t appear to breathe very often ( _is that a problem? Is that normal? Who fucking knows!_ ). But, when Steve does take a breath, color rushes back into his cheeks, and a second later, a large hand wraps around Bucky’s forearm.

“You don’t gotta do that,” Steve mutters, gravel in his voice. Bucky squirms, irritated at how quickly his body responds to that voice, and Steve touching him, and the idea that Steve is scenting him and _Alpha definitely likes our scent_ -

“Shut up.” Bucky manages to get Steve sitting fully upright, and a second later, he’s pressed his nose up against the thin skin of Bucky’s wrist. His head is still bleeding, but his eyes are focused now, his skin flushed even more, and there’s a rumble building in his chest. “Imagine what it’ll be like if I go off suppressants,” Bucky jokes weakly, flustered and flattered and a little frightened all at once.

“Fuck,” Steve moans, his eyes closing. He pushes Bucky’s hand away from his nose for a second and turns his head, breathing shallowly. “ _Fuck._ ”

The pile of rubble blocking them in shifts, and they both look over in alarm. Steve snarls, really snarls, and rises to his feet, only a little shaky.

“Careful!” Bucky fusses, flapping his hands anxiously. He grabs his rolling pin and stands right behind Steve’s shoulder, tugging on his elbow irately. “Be careful!”

The rumble in Steve’s chest only deepens, and Bucky’s frozen, torn between _complete and total arousal at how quickly Alpha jumps to defend_ and _this guy has gotta be fuckin’ kidding, tryna fight the world with a major head wound, where the fuck is his sense of self preservation, the big, beautiful idiot_ -

With a final, almighty shift, the rubble scatters, and Steve throws his arm out to protect Bucky from any shrapnel.

Iron Man’s on the other side, the glowing beacons embedded in his gauntlets powered up.

A second later, the visor lifts, and Tony Stark’s face appears. He squints between Steve - who’s still bristling and still bleeding - and Bucky, whose rolling pin is raised and ready for combat.

“Barnes? Cap’s special, secret Omega is James Barnes?” Tony asks in real surprise.

Bucky growls slightly in warning because he isn’t _anyone’s_ Omega, and his arm, in contradiction to his brain, lifts to wrap around Steve’s torso, because this is _his_ Alpha, and here comes a pesky, loud Omega, one with familiarity and assumptions and --

_Bucky does not like to share._

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down,” Tony soothes, blasters powering down.

“Tony. Nice to see you,” Steve says calmly.

And then he collapses backwards against Bucky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky's making [Quiche Lorraine](https://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/recipe/quiche-lorraine-recipe), which are delicious, and certainly cheer me up when I am sad.
> 
>  
> 
> Okay, friends:  
> Filthy, obscene smut is coming up in the next chapter.
> 
> I feel like this fic might need a fifth, unplanned chapter, that shows us Bucky and Steve after they've been *ahem* for quite some time. Thoughts? Concerns? Bueller?


	4. Apple Pie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Bucky go on a date.
> 
>  
> 
> And then another ... date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _chanting_ **smut smut smut smut SMUT SMUT SMUT**
> 
> Think there's not enough plot in this chapter? Well, oh well, it got to be eighteen pages long, and honestly, I was just writing to get to the smut  
> **Waves a magic wand**
> 
> (No, I'm not taking "con"crit on this, just enjoy this heaping pile of ridiculousness and know that if I wanted to change something, I would have already.)
> 
>  **Warnings**  
>  Reference to loss of family/loved ones in car crash, non-graphic
> 
> Alexander Pierce is a douchebag who forces his employees to hide their designation
> 
> Reproductive health woes - Bucky suffers physically and emotionally from his over-use of suppressants
> 
> References to state-supported "education" programs that take in unmated, untamed Omegas and essentially break them into submission to societal expectations.
> 
> Utter and unrepentant smut; oral sex, anal sex, ABO dynamics, etc etc etc etc
> 
>  _Notes_  
>  ** Denotes a POV change  
> *** denotes a time skip

With careful, practiced movements, Bucky works the butter and shortening into the flour and salt mixture. Figuring out how to not overwork dough was one of the hardest things he had to learn how to do, after getting his metal arm, but honestly, he’s gotten pretty good at it. It’s part of the reason he enjoys baking: he’d been able to develop it faster than most of his other hobbies, and to a deeper level.

He hadn’t been a baker before the accident; he’d learned how to be one after. Nothing to fix, nothing to heal, just something to study and perfect in his own time.

It’s nearing eleven a.m., which isn’t most people’s normal lunch time, but it is his typical schedule; as if on cue, his stomach rumbles. Soldat may be closed for renovations in the wake of the robot attack on Midtown, but Bucky can’t get his gut to realize that he has no reason to eat lunch so goddamn early (and, for that matter, he can’t convince his brain that he doesn’t need to wake up at 3:30 in the goddamn morning, either).

There isn’t much he can do, beyond snack and ruin his appetite, so he ignores his stomach for the time being. After rolling the dough out and trimming it to fit the tin, Bucky moves on to slicing the apples and adding the sugar and butter where needed, taking pains to lay the apples out in a pretty way. It’s with particular caution that he lays out the latticework for the top of the pie and then brushes on some milk so it will then cook prettier.

He hasn’t been this concerned with something he baked looking this pretty in a long time, not when Soldat has essentially drained him of any real joy surrounding his baking; but, he’s in his own, tiny kitchen, with his own, mildly shitty oven, and this is something he wants to take pride in, something he wants to hand over with zero worries about how it looks or how it tastes.

The entire apartment smells like nutmeg and vanilla (and a bit like content Omega, but Bucky won’t get into that) while he blasts the pie at an initial temperature of 400 degrees for the first fifteen minutes of its bake. He spends that time wiping his counters down meticulously, and then, for good measure, the rest of the surfaces in his kitchen and small dining area.

It’s a studio apartment, so he can see his bed in the corner, slightly hidden by a screen. There are a pile of blankets just out of sight, heaped up on his bed, and there are more blankets on his couch, and within those blankets are scarves and stuffed animals and a number of things that hold scent well, which Bucky can’t bring himself to get rid of. He’d rather die than tell anyone that he still sleeps with stuffed animals and what amounts to security blankets, but they _help._

Before he can decide to dive into his sleeping area and straighten it up for company, Bucky has to pull the pie out of the oven, check the top for spilling, and then lower the temp of the bake. Setting a timer for 35 minutes, he washes his hands and wanders over to his closet to pick out some semblance of a nice outfit.

Bottom line is: he doesn’t have a lot of clothes. He either spills on them when experimenting in the kitchen, or has kept them well past their prime, a result of not having a steady enough income to expand his wardrobe the way he wants.

“Fuck,” He mutters, throwing a sweater back into the closet. “Double fuck.” He’d forgotten his favorite blazer had a burn in it, a hole two inches from the front lapel. He isn’t honestly sure how it even got there, and honestly it doesn’t matter. _This is going to be an unmitigated disaster._

In the end, he goes with the red henley he was wearing when he and Steve met; when he presses his nose to it, he realizes with a twitch that he can still smell a hint of _Alpha_ on the henley, in particular, _Steve_ , which is overwhelming to think about, so he ends up lying facedown on his bed trying to breathe, wrapped around one of his aforementioned precious stuffed animals, a small platypus named Eustace that he’s had since he was a little older than a pup.

If you had told him two weeks ago that he’d be this panicked over a date with an Alpha - one who’d insulted him, come into his kitchen, his territory, uninvited, who’d almost exposed his status as an Omega - he would have laughed and offered some sort of prickly comment about going to see a shrink ( _because he knows a few of those, pal_ ).

Now, though, after the attack, and Steve’s attempt to save the day, and Steve’s deference to him in a tense moment, and Steve’s demeanor after his injury, well. Bucky’s mind and his dick seem to be on the same page.

 _Steve Rogers is a Good Alpha_. And for whatever reason, that Good Alpha wants to take him on a date.

And maybe, just maybe, Bucky will get some of that Good Alpha Dick.

He blushes at the thought and buries his head under the blankets some more, grumbling in embarrassment even though there’s no one there to hear him. “Get it together,” he reminds himself firmly.

The timer goes off, and he lifts his head blearily, the smell of baked pastry permeating the apartment now. If the pie is done that must mean it’s almost time for --

He scrambles off the bed so quickly he falls, but he shoves himself upright and runs into the kitchen; using his metal hand to take the pie out, he sets it on top of the cooling rack and fans it wildly with the pan. “Shit, shit, shit,” he declares. Bucky catches sight of himself in the microwave window, and, scowling, he jabs a finger at himself. “Get. It. Together.”

It’s the motto of his day by this point.

With no time to spare, he’s tightening his bun and letting wisps of it tease down his neck, framing his secondary glands in a way that’s subtle but also definitely noticeable. He barely has a second to worry that _Steve won’t find him attractive because who could be attracted to a giant fucking mess_ \-- when suddenly there’s a knock at his front door. Bucky curses under his breath, glaring at his still uncooled pie as though it had had betrayed him, as though it had been responsible for its delay going into the oven, and not his own poor time management skills.

He’s still reflecting on the slightly too-dark color of the lattice when he opens the door, which means he’s probably scowling.

Bucky corrects his expression after catching the surprised, worried look on Steve’s face -- right. Alphas are sensitive.

Everyone always wants to say that Omegas are the sensitive designation, but Bucky’s learned; it’s the Alphas who need the most validation and support. He’s just always been shit at providing it.

For Steve, though, he wants to try.

“Hi,” he says, sounding stupidly breathless. “Come in. It’s - uh, it’s a total mess in here, I’m sorry.”

Steve scoots in the door, ducking his head slightly as he enters the apartment; it’s in a building for Betas, which means it’s a little designed to be a little smaller than Steve might find comfortable. Bucky loves the slightly cramped feeling of the apartment, but he knows that outside of keeping an Omega company in heat, Alphas feel constrained when their territory is limited.

 _Maybe when we build a den together, I’ll have a separate space, one small and cozy and good for nesting,_ Bucky thinks. And then he tries not to slap himself in the forehead because _fuck_ where did that come from?

He realizes Steve still hasn’t said anything, and he also realizes Steve’s clutching a bunch of sunflowers in front of him like they’re that damn shield he hauls around (like an object the size of a glorified trash can lid is going to protect him from bullets -- worst possible goddamn planning of all time on that one, Stevie). “Are those--” Bucky points and then flounders because what if they’re not, what if they’re for someone else, but also, why the hell would Steve bring flowers for someone else on a date with Bucky, but _what if this isn’t a date, and_ \--

“Oh!” Steve turns bright red and nods, holding the flowers out awkwardly. “I wasn’t sure what kind of flowers you like, but the girl at the store said everyone likes sunflowers.”

“I _do_ like sunflowers,” Bucky says, more for something to say, but it’s obscene how quickly Steve relaxes in response. Interesting.

It’s well-known that Alphas like to hear they’ve pleased an Omega, but Bucky always figured that was limited to the bedroom; he’s lost count of how many times he’s had to reassure an Alpha that their sub-par sex skills were mindblowing, that their knot was amazing, that their hot breath was pleasant on his neck and not borderline repulsive. But with Steve, it seems like Bucky just acknowledging that he did something nice is more potent than a compliment about the size of his knot.

 _It’s probably time to re-examine those prejudices,_ he thinks, but he shuffles to kitchen with a small, genuine smile over his shoulder. “I’ll put these in water, and then we’ll get going?”

“Something smells amazing,” Steve says, his eyes fluttering shut slightly. Then, he turns red _again,_ this time from embarrassment. “Oh. Oh, God. That was - so rude, I’m so sorry, I--”

“I baked a pie.” Bucky laughs, standing up on tiptoes to grab the vase from above the fridge. “You’re fine. Beyond fine.” _Super fine,_ he thinks to himself, the back of his neck flushing.

He can’t quite reach the vase, and he huffs in frustration. He can sense Steve behind him, the Alpha having floated over when Bucky said the word _‘pie_ ,’ and he looks at him in assessment.

The other man is hovering, twisting his hands together, like he wants to do something but is stopping himself. It clicks in Bucky’s brain, what Steve is waiting for, and the fact that he’s waiting goes a long way in Bucky letting go of some of his pride and just asking:

“Do you think you could help me?”

Steve brightens so quickly it could be humorous, but Bucky also finds it intensely endearing. “I’d love to help!” He bounces on his feet until Bucky gives further instructions.

“Can you just - grab the vase?” Steve complies immediately, and then, he fills it up with water without being asked. Bucky hides a smile as Steve holds the vase out so Bucky can stick the flowers inside, and the whole thing feels terribly, distractingly domestic.

“There.” He arranges them so the heads of the flowers are arrayed properly. “Will you put them --” He points to a nice spot on the counter that gets sun in the afternoon, and Steve obliges him, exuding happiness. “They really are beautiful. Thanks, Steve.”

“You’re welcome.” Steve ducks his head bashfully, all softness and sweetness, and Bucky wonders if there are other Alphas like Steve, or if he just really broke the mold when he came out of that experiment (or, more likely, was he like this _before_ and just not appreciated for it due to his meager size and poor health? Oddly, the thought makes Bucky frown).

“I baked the pie for you,” Bucky blurts out, wanting to even the playing field slightly, and the smile Steve offers him is worth every ounce of stress of the morning. “It’s - it’s not very good, but, I figured, who doesn’t like pie?”

“I love pie,” Steve agrees enthusiastically, turning his massive blue eyes onto the pastry sitting on the cooling rack.

“We can’t eat it yet,” Bucky says sternly when Steve reaches out for it; Steve snatches his hands back like he’s been scolded, and Bucky suppresses a snort. “It’s for after lunch.”

“Oh, good.” Steve’s eyes flit around the space -- compulsive, Bucky can tell, a soldier’s assessing gaze -- and then his eyes crinkle in another, genuine smile. “You have a lovely home, Bucky.”

“Thank you,” Bucky says, weaker than he intended. He’s mortified when he lets out a tiny, unstoppable purr because an _Alpha_ likes his _nest,_ he did a _good job,_ and what if he wants to _sit in the nest later,_ they can correct the scent of it together, and --

Steve’s stomach rumbles, and it sounds like a minor earthquake.

“Lunch?” Bucky asks, grateful for the distraction from the slick that’s threatening to build up; with Steve’s obvious super-senses, it’d be pretty hard to hide his arousal from his date.

“Lunch,” Steve confirms.

He holds the door open for Bucky, and Bucky takes great pleasure in the way Steve’s face lights up like a Christmas tree when Bucky takes his hand on the way down the stairs.

**

Steve’s a pretty articulate guy. He might not have the most varied vocabulary (a side effect of his lack of a high school education, which ended two years earlier than it should have, after his mother died), but the words he _does_ know, he certainly knows how to use. He can rally the troops, he can deliver a speech, he can charm politicians on both sides of the aisle -- as long as Tony smacks his phone out of his hands when Steve tries to tweet at Trump, something he’s assured will only cause more headaches, no matter how satisfying it would be to say “ _you’re embarrassing yourself, you fuckwitted turnip #releaseyourtaxreturns_.”

He’s known for being an effective communicator, but something about the Omega sitting across from him has him tongue-tied and anxious, in a way that he hates, and he’s _sure_ Bucky hates, too.

“Sorry.” He finally lets it slip, and slams his head down into the nice tablecloth, smearing his misery all over the lovely, white fabric. “Sorry, I’m not usually this much of an asshole.”

“I don’t think you’re an asshole,” Bucky assures him immediately, and Steve snorts because how could he _not_ think that, after the way they met. Sure enough, Bucky continues, “I mean. I did the first time we met, but--”

Steve moans quietly, but Bucky picks up on it. “Hey.” Something tugs lightly on the hair at the back of Steve’s head, and he looks up sharply in response. Bucky doesn’t stop carding his fingers through Steve’s hair, and Steve’s eyes flutter slightly from how nice it feels.

It feels too nice.

Shit. They’re in public.

Bucky notices the problem a second later and retracts his hand with a blush. “Sorry,” he says, dropping his hand back into his lap and out of Steve’s sight. Steve tries not to whimper at the sudden separation. “Can’t say I’ve ever done that before.”

It’s not Bucky’s fault of course - everything he does seems designed to accidentally seduce Steve: truly, really, accidentally seduce him. It’s not Bucky’s fault that Steve can’t get it together, or that Steve hasn’t said more than five words strung together during the entire length of this date; he’s been nervously shredding the napkin in his lap for the last fifteen minutes, and he’s sure Bucky’s picked up on that.

“I’m not usually this … quiet.” Steve tries again, sitting up straight and holding his chin up high, the way Sarah Rogers taught him. “I … everything goes upside down when I look at you. Or think about you. Or talk to you.” Bucky’s staring now, and Steve forces himself to not look away. “That’s why I’m sorry. I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”

“Oh, thank God.” Bucky snorts and then grabs his water glass. He takes a sip before saying anything else, and Steve learns the full meaning of _sitting on the edge of your street._ “I thought I had something in my teeth, or you’d figured out that it wasn’t me you were attracted to, it was some other asshole who walked through the shop that day.”

“Definitely not.” Steve laughs self-deprecatingly, covering his eyes with his hands at the memory of how powerfully he’d reacted to Bucky’s scent the last two times he’d fully caught it. “You literally brought me back from the brink of death, Buck.”

“Maybe not literally _, Stevie_ ,” Bucky emphasizes the nickname like it’s going to annoy him, but really it just causes pride and happiness to flare in Steve’s gut because an Omega gave him a nickname, which is adjacent to a pet name, and _gosh Bucky Barnes was pretty as all get-out and Stevie sounds so pretty in his voice._ “But you should know. It’s, uh. It’s the same for me.”

He shifts awkwardly in his seat and looks away, as though hearing that won’t make Steve’s heart swell like a fifty piece orchestra.

“Yeah?” So much hope and heartbreak and nostalgia for something he never had, something he never thought he could have, packed into that whispered word.

“Yes.” Bucky nods, like it’s more for himself than Steve, and then shoots him a million dollar smile, one that reaches his silver-blue eyes and makes them sparkle like precious metal.

Then, Bucky coughs and winces, reaching for his water glass again, and Steve frowns, sensing something strange course through the air. “...Bucky?”

“I’m fine.” Bucky coughs again and winces, leaning to the right slightly and shrugging even though a slight grimace is now creeping across his expression.

“That doesn’t seem fine.” Steve leans forward, like a dog with a bone. “Are you feeling okay? Do you need to go home? Can I get you anything?”

“No!” Bucky coughs again, weakly and smiles even though his eyes are dimmed by whatever’s happening. “Christ, you really are an Alpha, huh?”

Steve makes a sound embarrassingly close to a whine, and Bucky’s expression softens. “Hey - hey, no, I just meant -- no one’s ever fussed over me before, that’s all.”

“No?” He bristles at the idea of it, that no one would care for this handsome, sweet, good, talented Omega --

“Never would let ‘em.” Bucky shrugs and sits up, his discomfort seemingly gone, at least for the moment. He reaches across the table and stretches his hand over Steve’s -- at some point, Steve had gripped the table -- and smoothes his fingers over Steve’s wrist until he relaxes. “Don’t mind it so much when it’s you.”

Steve smiles, proud of himself, but it fades a second later when Bucky continues.

“It’s been hard to let anyone in, to care about anyone, since my folks died. They uh -” He winces and looks out the window, to the sunny spring day carrying on outside the restaurant. “--They died in a car crash. I was a senior in high school. Lost my arm, lost my family.” Steve starts to say something _anything,_ needing to reduce Bucky’s pain for a second, but the other man squeezes his wrist gently. A warning. _Don’t say anything._ “Stark outfitted me with this prototype about three years ago, after he met me at a physical therapy appointment. My therapist knew him, knew about the Smart-Prosthetic Limb program he was running, but it took me about two years to be convinced to sign up. That’s, uh. How I know Tony.”

He shrugs again at the end of his speech, a controlled, nervous gesture. “Maybe he already told you that part.”

“He didn’t. I asked him not to.” Steve flips his hand so he can properly hold Bucky’s, and he smiles as warmly as he can. “Told him I wanted to learn about you from you.”

“Sap,” Bucky mutters, lips twitching. Their food comes a minute later, a large salad with salmon for Bucky, and three steaks and half a chicken for Steve. He squirms in mortification when Bucky raises his eyebrow, and it takes him a second to reach for his utensils, especially when all Bucky does is prop his chin in his hand and stare at him.

“I gotta eat a lot,” Steve explains guiltily, as though this is 1930 and Sister Mary Eunice has caught him sneaking licorice during Friday Mass. “Supersoldier metabolism, and all that.” He starts to cut up the steak before Bucky responds.

“It’s cute,” Bucky assures him, his voice --- his voice -- Steve’s knife skitters across the plate, and his ears burn. Bucky’s voice is pure sex, and he looks up with a grin from his food to see Bucky staring at him like a wolf staring down prey.

_Aren’t I the one who’s supposed to be in control?_

Steve worries on that front for less than three seconds because _fuck_ he wouldn’t mind it if Bucky took a bite out of him.

“Is it?” Steve takes an obnoxiously large bite of steak and smiles while chewing, knowing he’s dribbling slightly, knowing he looks like a total ass. Bucky just giggles, light and airy, cutting the mood slightly and shrugs again, this time in a more nonchalant way.

“Yeah. It’s super cute. I sorta wanna take you back to mine and just feed you. Bet I could find the bottom of that stomach of yours.”

Steve groans without warning and curls forward slightly. He hasn’t ever considered himself as a particularly kinky person, but something about what Bucky just suggested -- well, he’s been alive for basically a century. No shame in realizing now that he might just have a food kink, so long as Bucky is the one feeding him.

 _You jacked it after smelling his frangipane, and that isn’t even a euphemism. You’re a star-spangled disaster, Rogers._ Odd. His inner voice sounds like Sam Wilson at the moment.

However, as embarrassing as the flare in his Alpha pheromones is, it’s worse a second later when Bucky gasps and doubles over, clutching his stomach.

 _Distress, confusion, agony_ \--

The normal, stunted smell of Bucky is suddenly in utter chaos, flare ups of vanilla and spice and frost here and there, a cacophony of scent that Steve’s jaw drops at.

“Hey,” he soothes, reaching out, “Whoa - what’s happening?”

“Nothing.” Bucky grits his teeth and closes his eyes. “Just -- forgot how” -- he waves a hand miserably, eyes still clenched shut -- “You are.”

“How I am?” Steve feels like he could be offended, but really he's caught up in concern.

“Your scent,” Bucky gasps, reaching for his water again. “ _Shit_ \- I can’t start my heat. I can’t. I just --” He shakes, violently, and when their waitress starts to walk towards them, concern on her face, Steve holds up a hand to stop her in her tracks.

“It doesn’t smell like you’re going into heat.” Steve speaks as quietly as possible, leaning over the table with a frown, studying Bucky’s pained expression. “Maybe … more like you’re getting sick? Not to be rude,” he adds hastily, blushing hard at how this might make Bucky feel.

But, Bucky just shakes his head and grits his teeth more. A minute later, it passes, with Bucky breathing shallowly through his mouth.

“Why can’t you start your heat?” Steve asks out of sheer curiosity, but Bucky shoots him a death glare, one that could parallel Nat’s, and he holds his hands up quickly. “Shit. Sorry. That was so rude - I just - doesn’t it hurt to not -- it just, it hurts me when I don’t -- fuck. I mean. Not _fuck._ ” Maybe it isn't too late to jump out the window and run down the street. That seemed to work when he woke up in 2011.

“You’re fine.” Bucky shakes his head and half-smiles, letting Steve relax a bit. “I just can’t lose my job, is all. Hard enough for an Omega to find work, and I’m a disabled, broken Omega.”

“You aren’t broken,” Steve interjects forcefully, but quiets when Bucky shoots him another look. “Sorry. Sorry -- but. Buck, you can’t lose your job, not for going into heat. There are laws--”

“I’m declared as a Beta,” Bucky whispers, face bright red. “That’s why -- I was so awful to you when I thought you were trying to report me. I -- I’m getting the best suppressants on the market through my boss’s insurance, and he handles the forms, and it helps me … not have to declare with the government.” He fidgets and looks down at the table. “Why do you think I haven’t gone to those state-sponsored _intervention_ programs yet?”

“No.” Steve has the sudden urge to be violently ill. “I thought those were a myth.”

“They aren’t.” Bucky clears his throat painfully. “My friend, Darcy -- her friend, Jane, didn’t mate. She was - is - an astrophysicist. Only Omega in her field. They made her go to one of those horrible fucking programs, after she got sick during an _unaccompanied_ heat.” He spits out the word _unaccompanied,_ like its poison in his mouth. “The police used her distress as a reason to arrest her. For personal safety. Off she goes to a program, and since she’s been back, she doesn’t … she doesn’t leave her apartment anymore.” Bucky glares down at his plate and shakes his head.

“I can’t afford to go into heat. Not when I’d lose my job, lose the suppressants. It’s - it’s too risky.”

“Bucky, those suppressants cause infertility. Cancer, even. They can kill people,” Steve speaks urgently, reaching out across the table, but Bucky doesn’t look up or reach back.

“It’s worth it to be free.”

And Steve understands. The scrappy, sick underdog that still lives inside of him understands. “Go down fighting, and not giving in to their demands,” he whispers, and Bucky nods, something sad in his eyes.

“But,” he brightens slightly, as though something’s just occurred to him. “Once the estimate on the renovations comes back from the insurance company, Pierce’ll know how long Soldat will have to be closed. And if it’s more than two weeks, I can go off the suppressants, at least, temporarily.”

Bucky wants to give Steve a heart attack, he’s sure, wants to test those improvements Erskine made all those years ago, because he adds, in a murmur, looking up with those remarkable eyes of his through lowered lashes:

“And I might need some help to get through it.”

***

**

Bucky stares up at Soldat, with its _closed until..._ sign out front, a smile forming, unstoppable, on his face.

Three weeks. They won’t have this place up and running for _three_ weeks.

He can sleep in, he can bake for himself, he can nap in the middle of the goddamn day if he feels like it.

Sure, he won’t get paid for these three weeks, but he’s got a comfortable amount saved up, definitely enough to cover a month or two of rent plus extras, so this is the best case scenario.

Then, as though his happiness had summoned him to correct it, Pierce walks up to Bucky with a stern look on his lined face.

“Really, James, I must say, your scent has become rather potent of late.”

“Uh.” Bucky blinks in surprise. “S-sorry?” It’s not polite, after all, to be so forward with a statement like that. In the past, Pierce has kept comments about Bucky’s designation to behind closed doors, where no one could hear and comment.

But, they’re alone out here on the sidewalk, most people avoiding this part of the street due to the lingering debris and pieces of buildings lying around (Stark’s paying for a clean-up, but the crews are busy elsewhere this week). So, Pierce must feel comfortable enough tormenting Bucky out in the open for once.

“Don’t be sorry, my boy.” Pierce claps a hand to Bucky’s shoulder. The ruined one. Like a reminder. He digs his fingers in at the edge of the metal, and Bucky forces himself not to wince, to just stare at the sidewalk until Pierce walks away. “Just be ready to work, the second we re-open -- which, I hear, might be earlier than anticipated. And we can’t exactly re-invite Manhattan to our little shop if our beloved baker is so subject to his  _biology_. Am I understood?”

“Perfectly,” Bucky half-snarls.

“Good.” Pierce’s smirk is audible, and Bucky forces himself to breathe in through his nose, out through his mouth, as Pierce’s fancy shoes clack away down the sidewalk.

His shoulders are shaking with humiliation and anger and frustration -- _how dare he -- Bucky has every right to -- that motherfucking -- he needs this job, he needs this job, he needs --_

“Is he always that shitty?”

Bucky yelps and jumps half a foot in the air, an action he’ll deny later.

Sitting on a chunk of cement and filing her nails is a strikingly beautiful woman with flaming red hair.

The Black Widow.

She examines her nail beds, swiping away imaginary dust before pocketing her file and smiling at Bucky. “So, is he?"

“Y-yeah.” Bucky nods and then stands up tall. If Winifred Barnes were here, she’d remind him to stand proper when meeting strangers, especially ladies. “He’s a real scumbag.”

“Tell me about it.” Nat cocks her head, and Bucky understands it isn’t a request. She hops down from her perch and holds her hand out; he takes it without question. “Come on. I’ll walk you home, James.”

“It’s Bucky,” he corrects automatically, immediately regretting it because this is the world’s best assassin, and she can call him whatever she damn well pleases.

Sure enough, she rolls her eyes. “I’m Natasha, and I’m probably going to call you James.”

“Fair enough.”

They walk towards his building, and Natasha leans into his side as they pass a group of Alphas. He tensed the moment they saw them, but Natasha is a different story. She doesn’t seem to be afraid of them all, but Bucky realizes -- she’s making them think _she’s_ the Omega, and he’s the strong -- whatever designation she is.

He doesn’t want to ask, but he also really does.

However, it’s her quiet act of kindness that has him clearing his throat. “Alexander Pierce owns the building, and like you said, he’s … pretty shitty…”

***

Bucky isn’t sure what the hell Natasha does in the ten hours after she drops him off at his building, but he wakes to a five a.m. text from Darcy:

[ _TONY STARK JUST BOUGHT SOLDAT FROM PIERCE_ ]

He sends back a stream of confused, bewildered emojis, blinking sleep out of his eyes -- it’s still five a.m, but this is the latest he’s slept in on a weekday in the last two years -- before he can respond. [ _What?_ ]

[ _Stark bought Soldat out from underneath Pierce! Guess he made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. So, now we’re under new management :) :) :P_ ]

Everything clicks in his brain then: if Pierce is gone, that means there’s no one who’s going to say _no_ to him going off his suppressants when he’s supposed to. No one who can force him to work impossible hours under the threat of exposing his real designation -- Pierce still might spill the beans, but Bucky has a feeling Tony Stark, friends with Natasha Romanov, made that fucker sign _something_ that made him swear not to mess with any of Soldat’s employees (if the murderous expression Natasha made when Bucky told her the truth was anything to go of off, at least).

It’s five a.m., and his best friend just texted him the best news he’s heard in years, and Bucky isn’t at all ashamed to admit that he rolls over in his nest of blankets, wraps his arms around Eustace, and cries into the worn-down, patchy fur of his beloved platypus for a solid fifteen minutes.

***

“No, not like that! Slower. Steve! _Slower_!”

Steve looks up guilty from where he’s beating the _shit_ out of the eggs, and Bucky groans, laughing slightly at the consternated expression on his silly Alpha’s face.

“But, I’m mixing them,” Steve protests weakly, holding up the stirred eggs for inspection, and Bucky studies them, still incredibly amused.

“You’re hurting them, baby,” he corrects, easing the bowl out of Steve’s hands; it’s oddly warm, a combination of Steve’s own incredible body temperature, and the speed with which he was trying to stir. “We can probably add the rest of the wet ingredients now.”

Steve crowds in against him as Bucky drags his finger down the recipe. It’s more for show than anything else; Bucky’s been able to make cookies in his sleep since he was eighteen years old. Still, it’s nice to have Steve stand behind him, his chin on Bucky’s shoulder, an arm wrapped tight around his middle while they study the cookbook together.

“Did you measure out the oil?” Bucky asks, leaning back to plant a soft kiss to Steve’s cheekbone. Steve hums in both affirmation and contentment, and Bucky smiles at the way it vibrates through Steve’s massive chest. It should be alarming, that someone this large is holding him and nuzzling him and occupying part of his space, but it’s not.

It’s Steve. His Alpha.

Bucky’s stopped wondering when Steve became _his._ He can’t even worry about it, not when it feels so normal to think of Steve as his, and himself as Steve’s. It feels soothing. Right. Balanced. Like a good recipe.

It’s cheesy, and it has Bucky blushing, which Steve picks up on quickly due to their proximity.

“What is it?” He rubs his face against Bucky’s, the beard scratching at his skin pleasantly, and Bucky pretends to wrinkle his nose.

“No sir, nuh-uh. We gotta finish.”

Steve grumbles, reaching around Bucky to unceremoniously dump the wet ingredients together, his other hand stirring circles into Bucky’s hip. It’s incredibly distracting, and Bucky forces himself to admire the rebuilt wall in front of him, here in the renovated, updated, good-as-new kitchen of Soldat.

Tony’s been the owner for less than a month, and already it feels like a different place. It helps that Clint Barton turned out to be a surprisingly adept baker -- “ _You could fill a library with what I don’t know about that guy,_ ” Steve had mused when they found out -- who was also entirely non-territorial as a Beta, so not only is Bucky off the hook as permanent baker of Le Soldat d’Hiver, he’s also been allowed to make this kitchen feel more like a home, encouraged to, even, by his new boss.

It feels nice to be baking in here with Steve, the Alpha who he might sort of be on the way to loving, and Bucky feels warm all over, like the warmth from the ovens, or even from Steve, is leaking into him.

“Dry ingredients next,” Bucky whispers, his voice sounding a little hoarse even to his own ears, and Steve grunts in response. It’s an innocent enough sound, but it shoots straight to Bucky’s core, and he immediately feels the slick build as a result.

“Not that dry,” Steve rumbles, and Bucky tenses. “Sorry, sorry--”

Bucky twists out of Steve’s embrace to frown at him, and as fun as his plan is, it still physically hurts him to pull away from Steve’s arm, especially when the man can _pout_ like that.

He slowly and deliberately reaches out to the collection of ingredients on the work station and digs his real hand into the flour.

“Punk.” With a dramatic flick of the wrist, he throws a good pinch of flour on Steve, who splutters in shock and indignation.

“Jerk!” Steve lunges forward for a handful of flour of his own; he dumps it on Bucky’s head without further warning.

“Oh, it’s _on,_ ” Bucky seethes, swatting flour out his hair angrily, bristling like an alleycat that’s been rubbed the wrong way. “My _hair_.”

“You look like a ghost, Buck,” Steve teases him, already backing up, an ornery light in his eyes. “A cute ghost, though.”

“You fucking--” Bucky grabs another handful of flour, not caring that he’ll have to clean it up later, and chucks it at Steve.

Next comes the sugar, which doesn’t stick as satisfyingly, but still bounces in a fun way; the chocolate chips are also fun to peg at Steve, who gives as good as he gets. They’re both wheezing with laughter by the time Bucky seizes the wet ingredients, shrieking in protest when Steve approaches him with the full, stern Captain-America-Says-Fuck-You expression he sometimes gets when going full Alpha.

“Bucky-”

“Don’t come any closer!” Bucky threatens, holding the bowl aloft. “I have a weapon, and I’m not afraid to use it!”

“If I see a threat, I have to neutralize it, Buck,” Steve says, crouching slightly and walking forward like they’re in combat, and Bucky’s being unreasonable. “It’s nothin’ personal, sweetheart.”

 _Sweetheart_ gets him just distracted enough that Steve can lurch forward and grab the bowl out of his hands with a triumphant “AHA!” The bowl clatters back to the workstation, and Bucky’s forearms end up wrapped in Steve’s massive hands; he glowers up at the Alpha, but only for a second because Steve leans down with a smirk on his stupid, handsome face, most likely to say something snarky and bitchy (because Captain America is snarky and bitchy and who fuckin’ knew?) but then, when he takes a breath to speak, his pupils dilate.

“ _Buck._ ”

His name is said like a prayer. His name is something _holy_  in Steve's voice _._ It sets Bucky’s blood on fire, and he clears his throat, floundering suddenly in the intensity of Steve’s gaze, and he rubs his thighs together in a definitely conspicuous way.

“Oh, right.” He blushes from the roots of his hairs to his toes, probably. “I - I stopped taking them. Three days ago.” He doesn't have to explain further; Steve's face tells him he understood.

“Yeah?” Steve’s frozen, and his whole body is quivering with pent-up energy. Not for the first time, Bucky appreciates how much larger Steve is -- and, with his nose less blocked than it’s been, he can take a deep breath of his own and appreciate _just how fucking good Steve smells._

“Yeah. I figured, Clint could cover my shifts, and - and I need to go into heat, and--”

“You do,” Steve nods, his eyes returning slightly to normalcy; in their place, a bashful expression rises, and Bucky doesn’t want that. No. He wants that Steve-losing-control from before. He wants -

“It’s not just for me.” _This will definitely work,_ the less inhibited, hornier part of his brain crows. “I went off of them … for us.”

“Us.” Steve rubs his nose along Bucky’s hairline, breathing contentedly. “ _Us_.” And then. “Buck.” Steve leans down with a groan and then stops himself, his throat working over something, his mouth half-open. “I-”

“Just kiss me, already,” Bucky snaps, leaning up on his toes to close the distance.

Steve kisses him fiercely, nothing like the sweet peck he’d given him after their first date, or the chaste, albeit hotter kisses they’d traded over the last few weeks.

This kiss sets Bucky’s blood on fire, and when he nips on Steve’s full, bottom lip, he’s met with a groan and two hands wrapping around his thighs; Bucky’s hoisted in the air like he weighs less than a sack of flour, and deposited on the messy workstation.

“We’ll make a mess,” Bucky pants, pulling away to fumble with the buttons of Steve’s stupid, fancy, tight shirt.

“Good,” Steve growls, ripping the damn thing open for Bucky, the buttons flying into the corner of the kitchen.

 _What a waste of a good shirt,_ Bucky should scold.

“Meep” is what he really says before Steve’s diving in to suck at his neck, just below his glands, with a hint of urgent desperation that has Bucky’s hips surging up, seeking some kind of friction. “Baby - baby, touch me, please.” He whines, and he hates it, hates it until Steve growls in response, his hands moving rapidly to push Bucky’s shirt up and out of the way. Steve half-kneels to nip and kiss and suck at Bucky’s stomach, the muscles of his abdomen jumping from the contact, as Steve pushes the shirt all the way up and then tugs it over Bucky’s head, balling it up and chucking it over his shoulder like it’s offended him.

Too late, Bucky remembers - his hand goes to cover metal, his body locking with embarrassment, and then --

Steve kisses his non-ruined shoulder, his fingers digging into Bucky’s thighs with the same edge of desperation as before. His hands explore Bucky’s body without reservation, not lingering at the scars on his shoulder, but not avoiding them, not toying with the plates of his arm, but not avoiding it, and Bucky smiles down into blonde hair before reaching up to card his fingers through the silky strands.

“Kiss me?” He asks, but again, it’s pleading. He doesn’t have to plead though, not when his Alpha is so attentive, and good, and a second later, Steve’s between his legs again, crowding into kiss him in a way that’s both tender and possessive.

Their pants are discarded with similar haste - and if Bucky wasn’t soaked before, he is now, when Steve lifts him bodily, under the ass, with one hand, and tugs his pants down with the other -- and Steve kneels to gently pull Bucky’s boxers free.

He does something surprising, next. Bucky should really learn to stop being surprised by Steve Rogers, but he’s been kicked by life before, a lot, so it’s hard to remember that this Alpha is really here for him, is here to take care of him, and Bucky’s caught entirely off guard when Steve looks at him with his blue eyes wide and dark, his hair tousled and still absolutely filthy from their food fight and asks,

“Can I suck your cock, babydoll?”

Bucky nods, open-mouthed in shock, and Steve makes a happy, soft noise before leaning over to nuzzle at the inside of his thigh. It tickles, his beard against such sensitive skin, so he yelps and laughs for a second. Then, he’s not laughing. Then, Steve’s lapping at his cock -- much, much smaller than Steve’s, something now confirmed with Steve’s pants and underwear discarded -- his hand almost larger than him as he strokes him once, twice, before he kisses around the head and then swallows him down to the root.

“Unh-” Bucky flails and then falls back on his elbows, staring up at the ceiling and trying to breathe, trying to -

“So wet for me,” Steve croons, nosing at the slick inside of Bucky’s thighs, his hand still working mercilessly over Bucky’s cock. No Alpha’s ever played with Bucky’s cock before, other than a perfunctory stroke or two when he’s already coming. This is beyond overwhelming, and now Steve’s starting to whisper filthy things to him, so Bucky might just lose it. “Are you ready for me, Bucky?”

“Yes.” Bucky nods, quickly, and Steve kisses his thigh with more teeth involved than strictly necessary before rising to his feet.

It’s undeniable, the simple fact that Steve Rogers is an Alpha. Tall, broad, muscular -- and a cock so huge it makes Bucky feel honest-to-God like he might faint. The scent of him drifts through the kitchen, intoxicating, heady, and Bucky’s brain kicks into overdrive.

“Alpha,” he whines, holding a hand out. Steve’s eyes darken even more, and then he’s pressed up against him, kissing Bucky like their lives depend on it, his cock pressing into Bucky’s hip, where the skin is damp from Steve’s mouth and sweat and who knows what else.

“Do you need me to fuck you?” Steve pants, leaning away slightly to smirk down at Bucky better. “Do you need my cock?”

“Yes, Alpha,” Bucky says the title with a little more teasing this time, but Steve seems delighted. His cock slips against the inside of Bucky’s thigh, and they both groan at how easily it slides, at how much slick there really is.

“D’you want my knot?” That’s said in a different tone of voice, more thoughtful, more un-horny-Steve. “I don’t wanna hurt you, babydoll.”

 _I can take it,_ Bucky wants to whine. But, honestly, it has been a while since he had sex, so…

“Not today.” Bucky shakes his head, nervous that this will make Steve change his mind. “If we can - skip the knot, I’d uh -”

“Of course.” Steve kisses him sweetly on the nose, and then again on the lips. “If it hurts at all, let me know, okay? I know it can be … a lot.”

“A lot is a seven inch dildo.” Bucky spreads his legs wider in invitation and smirks up at Steve. “I’d say you’re working with a whole lot more than _a lot,_ pal.”

“Smart-ass,” Steve mumbles, his hand around his cock as he guides himself to notch against Bucky’s asshole. “Ready?”

“C’mon,” Bucky says, rolling his eyes and hooking his feet into the ridiculous dimple above Steve’s ass. “While some of us are still young.”

“You are,” Steve slips in, a few inches, faster than he was expecting probably, but Bucky _is_ obscenely wet, and they groan in tandem at the feeling, “ _such_ a punk.”

“But I’m your punk,” Bucky reminds him, only half-nervous about it, with his hands, one silver, one tan, braced on Steve’s shoulders as he begins to rock in, back out, and then a little more in on each thrust.

“Mine,” Steve agrees, ducking his head down to mouth at the small gland under Bucky’s jaw. “And I’m yours.”

Bucky hums and then keens as Steve rocks up at a different angle, striking the spot inside him he can rarely reach outside of heat on his own. Pleasure he isn’t used to feeling outside of heat sparks up in his spine, and Steve seems to make hitting that spot his mission, given the way his eyebrows set and his hips begin to rock at an established, almost overwhelming tempo.

It’s right on the edge of too much, the combination of Steve looking at him like he’s precious, and the heat of Steve’s cock in his body, and the hand Steve eventually wraps around his slightly leaking cock, but it isn’t until Steve kisses Bucky tenderly, mid-thrust, that Bucky comes, splattering slightly on his stomach and Steve’s hand.

He’s got his metal fingers in Steve’s hair, and Steve’s got a fucked-out look in his eyes, so Bucky decides to tip the scales in his favor slightly. Pulling on Steve’s absurd shoulders, he gets him almost chest-to-chest with himself, and then leans up slightly to suck at the very edge of the mating gland at the top of Steve’s trapezius.

“O-oh _fuck,_ Bucky, babydoll, oh _fuck_ ,” Steve comes with a shout, and Bucky holds him as gently but possessively as he can, his fingers in Steve’s hair. Steve’s knot is _there,_ and Bucky can feel it nudge at his ass now and then, but as promised, Steve makes no effort to knot him. Instead, he scoops Bucky up and kisses him again, still coming, still groaning, his arms wrapped around Bucky protectively and - _dare he say_ \- lovingly.

Half a minute later, Steve sets Bucky down gently on the workstation, and goes to grab a clean dishcloth from the kitchen. With his breath evening out, Bucky can now survey the damage done to the kitchen around them: an explosion of flour, a spilled bowl of vanilla and eggs and oil, slick and come smeared into the workstation.

Steve tenderly wipes away the mess between Bucky’s thighs while he lies back and tries to control his breathing, but he can’t help it. Bucky starts to laugh and laugh and laugh, unable to stop.

“What is it?” Steve wipes his own -- still erect, and _isn’t that something_ \- cock and sets the cloth aside. He gathers Bucky up in his arms and nuzzles his hairline, mouthing soft kisses into his forehead and nose and cheeks.

“We’re going to have to sterilize this place,” Bucky wheezes. “I think we just committed over twenty health code violations.”

“What can I say,” Steve kisses him sweetly, still holding him as though he weighed nothing, and truthfully, this is the lightest Bucky’s felt in a decade. “You’re dating a bad boy.”

That makes Bucky giggle even harder, the idea that Steven Grant Rogers could ever be a bad boy. “Y-you got a motorcycle, Rogers?”

“Oh, Bucky.” Steve kisses his temple this time, pulling away to smile at him gently. “I’ve got _two_.”

His brain goes offline for a second, at the thought of Steve straddling a motorcycle. Then, his brain, still catching up with the return to his normal hormonal cycle, provides him an image of Bucky straddling Steve straddling a motorcycle. “Buh--”

“Mhm.” Steve smirks, the punk. “That’s what I thought.”

***

They do make a good faith effort to clean the kitchen up, but an hour and a half later, they’re back at Bucky’s apartment, Steve in Bucky’s bed, accepting bites of pastry from Bucky’s hand, both of them smiling so wide their cheeks ache, their teeth hurting from a sweetness that’s more than just sugar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's the end of my original plan for this fic; there's a whole universe of it in my head, where Pierce becomes a full villain, and Darcy and Steve take on ARAs together and Jane meets/falls in love with Thor (and everything is soft and happy for her and her non-human, non-ABO partner) and then Bucky and Steve might even mate, but whoooooo knows.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you had fun. Thanks for reading!


	5. Break and Bake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky can't figure out why he can't bake today........ and then it all makes sense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hello! Welcome back!!
> 
>  
> 
> Maybe you needed some sweetness on this Saturday? 
> 
> Enjoy some warm, squishy, fluffy heat sex!

* * *

 

Bucky prods the collapsed souffle with an unprecedented level of melancholy. A whine builds in his throat, and he quickly clamps down on the primal sound. How pathetic is he, sniffling over a fucked-up souffle? Still though. He can’t believe he let it overbake, and he prods it again in a huff.

Nothing is going right this morning, it seems. The muffins had burnt, the quiches had turned to goo, and the cookies hadn’t even made it into the oven because, out of nowhere, his brain decided it was best if he just … ate all the cookie dough. Which is something he’s been inspired to do all of _never in his life._ His first souffle hadn’t even risen, probably due to how poorly he’d treated the egg whites, making them floppy and sad and useless. Like him.

He hangs his head and fights another whine.

Sliding to the floor in a fit of self-pity, Bucky looks at his phone to see how long he has before the shop has to be open. Steve’s face smiles up at him from his wallpaper, a soft and goofy expression that he’d captured the other day when they were at lunch. He’s a total sap for how soft it makes him feel, but right now it just makes him feel sadder than normal because _Steve isn’t here._ He sets the phone dejectedly next to him and gives in to the pity party.

As he’s sitting there on the blessedly cool floor of Soldat’s kitchen -- and that’s another thing! When did it get so hot? It’s barely summer, for crying out loud, not even seventy degrees outside -- wondering when he’d become so bad at the thing that is literally his life, the bell above the back door tinkles brightly, sweeping in the scent of early morning Manhattan and a hint of rain.

“Morning!”

Bucky doesn’t even respond to the chipper voice of Clint Barton. The guy might not be able to hear him after all, so when Clint putters around the prep table to see his fellow pastry chef collapsed on the ground in a pathetic heap, Bucky summons all of his energy to sign _good morning_ back at him.

“What’s wrong, dude?” Clint crouches and examines him with a frown, and Bucky takes a deep breath, relying on the calm, absent scent of Beta to help him clear his head a little. Instead of calming him though, he only gets more upset, and he ducks his head so Clint won’t see his expression collapse like a shitty souffle.

“I can’t do anything right,” Bucky mumbles before remembering that Clint needs to see his lips to understand him properly. He lifts his head and repeats the sentiment, and Clint makes a cooing sound of support.

He still can’t believe the guy isn’t an Omega, especially after seeing him with the spider.

“Why do you think that is?” Rather than push Bucky up off the floor and force him to get to work -- which does appeal to about five percent of Bucky’s brain, the other ninety-five warped by self-pity and frayed nerves -- Clint sits across from him, his legs sprawled out in an endearingly lackadaisical way.

“I don’t know.” Bucky thumps his head against the prep table, shaking it slightly. “I’m useless.”

That earns him a sharp pinch to the calf.

“Holy _shit --_ what the fuck, dude?”

“That’s my friend you’re talking about,” Clint warns by way of explanation. “Treat him with some damn respect.”

“Fine!” Bucky seethes, rubbing the sore spot on his leg. “Christ, asshole, that really fucking hurt.”

“Baby.” Clint sticks his tongue out at him, and Bucky has half a mind to grab it and pull. That would probably only encourage the archer to lick his hand, though, and Bucky doesn’t want to invite that kind of grossness into his life. Only Steve gets to lick him --

His brain goes entirely, shockingly offline at the thought of Steve licking him. Licking his palm. The gland in his wrist. The base of his neck. His mating gland, which throbs and pulsates greedily as Bucky imagines Steve’s tongue laving over it, again, and again, and again, with the scrape of his perfect, straight teeth right before he --

Bucky fights a moan, and suddenly Clint’s nose wrinkles.

“Why’d you come into work if it’s so close?” Clint asks, shoving at his leg.

“When what’s so close?” Bucky grumbles. Clint stares at him like he’s the biggest idiot in the world. “Steve’s birthday isn’t for a fucking month, I’ve got plenty of time to figure out what to get him.”

“Smells like you might want it to be pups,” Clint jokes, pushing his leg again, and Bucky tenses, about to hiss at Clint for a joke like that, when something goes _click_ in his overwrought, stressed-out brain.

“No.” Bucky stares at the floor, at the drain in the middle of it, watching his self-control quiver and snap in his mind’s eye. “Oh--”

“You didn’t know?” Clint’s in his line of sight, crouched again and worried. “Aw, Bucky, no.”

“I can’t go into heat,” Bucky whispers, cheeks flushed. “I - I --”

“You have heat leave,” Clint reminds him with a frown. “Ten days of it every three months. And the boss isn’t the kinda guy to begrudge you more.”

“If I’m not here, how will the shop run?” Bucky moans, clutching his hands to his head. “If Pierce finds out --”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Clint grabs his shoulders and shakes a little, and Bucky has to grind his teeth together to stop from growling at the thought of _anyone_ touching him who isn’t his Alpha.

 _Alpha_.

He can feel the surge of hormones flushing under his skin, and Clint’s nose twitches again. Bucky will remember to be embarrassed later.

“Pierce can’t control you anymore,” Clint reminds him firmly, very politely side stepping any sort of comment on the undeniable smell of slick, slick that formed the second Bucky’s mind flitted to golden hair and big, capable hands and broad shoulders. “Tony bought the shop, and Tony knows how hard it is to be an Omega. Also, I _can_ bake. Not like you can, and not as much, but still. Worse comes to worse, we sell less baked goods this week. Whatever, man.”

“I--I don’t know if Alph---if _Steve_ can--it’s asking a lot, t-to” Bucky says, and Clint snorts.

“Buddy, text Steve that you’re going into heat, and I guarantee that asshole will steal one of Stark’s helicopters and fly here, to you, in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

“Ew.” It’s Bucky’s turn to wrinkle his nose. “Who says that?”

“Me, that’s who. And I’m telling you, Steve won’t think you’re _asking a lot_ if you want to spend your heat with him. He’s a good Alpha, and it doesn’t hurt the guy’s in love with you.”

“What?” Even through the fog in his brain that he now, very belatedly, realizes is pre-heat hormones making him a little edgy and a little sluggish, Bucky catches onto the implication of what Clint just said.

His phone vibrates next to him on the ground, but he can’t be bothered to check it, not when Clint just said...Clint said…

“Did he tell you?” Bucky asks hoarsely, suddenly nervous, the frustrated tears from before back and stronger than ever from how badly he needs to know. “Did he -- what did he say?”

“I shouldn’t answer that,” Clint says warily, eyeing the phone. “You gonna get that?”

“Tell me,” Bucky begs, his skin too tight and too hot to put up with this shit. “Come on, tell me!” He’s glad, distantly, that Darcy isn’t here to witness this and make fun of him for it when he’s more lucid.

“Fine.” Clint snatches the phone and answers the call before Bucky can say anything about it; he’s on his feet and pacing, so Bucky can’t even smack him. “Hey, Steve.”

_Steve._

“Gimme that,” Bucky hisses, lurching to his feet. A horrible, awful cramp hits him then, and what Clint had guessed at reveals itself at last. His heat’s about to start.

He folds in on himself, groaning in pain, a hand pressed to his abdomen; warmth, sickly and unwelcome, pours down his body, starting from his head and seeping into every inch of skin, pain curdling in his gut undeniably. “F-fuck.”

Bucky grips the prep table, the metal groaning under the pressure of his prosthetic. Clint’s at his side now, making concerned noises again.

“He’s okay,” Clint’s saying while rubbing circles into the small of Bucky’s back. It alleviates the pain, if only a little bit, and Bucky swallows back some bile that had risen from the sudden, unexpected wave of pain. “Just cramps.”

Bucky turns his head to glower at his co-baker and friend, and Clint takes a solid two seconds to realize what he’s given away. “Uhm.”

He can hear the tinny voice of Steve Rogers shouting through the phone. “... _Cramps? What do you -- Clint, answer me, is Bucky alright?_ ”

Bucky motions for the phone, his hand trembling slightly; Clint gives it up with little fuss, and he shuffles away, clearly aware that he might have opened a can of worms here.

“Hey,” Bucky greets, cutting Steve’s concerned diatribe off. “I’m okay.”

“Buck.” One syllable, and it cuts Bucky to his already throbbing core. He makes a soft noise in his throat, and Steve’s voice shifts hearing it. “Babydoll.”

“Alpha,” Bucky whispers, unable to stop himself. His flesh hand grips the phone while the metal one tightens on the table: it groans again in response. Steve growls, and Bucky nearly falls to his knees right then and there. “I - my heat’s…”

“Did it start?” Steve drops the sexy Alpha tone in favor of a deeply concerned one. “Shit, babydoll, are you safe? Do you need--”

“About to start,” Bucky grits out, another wave of pain hitting his gut. “It’s gonna be… I mean … it’s been a while...and…”

“What can I do for you? What do you need” Gentle, non-aggressive, safe. Bucky closes his eyes and focuses on the anchor of Steve’s voice -- if you’d told him a few months ago that he’d not only forgive the asshole Alpha who’d charged into his shop asking about mates ( _soul_ mates at that), but also rely on him for safety and comfort and heat-sex, he would have chased you out with his rolling pin.

Now, though…

“You,” Bucky confesses. “Fuck, I need you. Need you to--” Another cramp.

“Can you get home?” Steve asks, all business, but slightly out of breath. Bucky imagines Steve at a jog (which is a sprint for most people, Bucky included), phone pressed to his ear, “Captain America Means Business Face” on.

“Y-yeah.” He looks over to see Clint peering at him in concern from the doorway. “Clint can give me a ride.”

“Good. I’ll meet you there. Do you need anything from the store?”

“The store,” Bucky huffs a laugh. “They selling cock at the store these days?”

Steve growls, low and proprietary, and Bucky’s knees buckle again. “I meant water, Gatorade, shit like… I don’t know, like a heating pad. Do you get cravings, sweetheart?”

 _Thoughtful Alpha._ That’s simply far too pleasing for his brain to handle right now, so Bucky forces himself to answer.

“Yeah. I - peanut butter. I want peanut butter when I -- it’s been a few years though, and … and it’s … going to be long, probably, and you don’t have to---”

“Go home,” Steve orders, not using a Command, but it works just as well. “Wait for me there. Don’t open the door for anyone but me.”

“Steve?”

“Yes?”

“You can,” his eyes slip shut as though it will shield him from embarrassment, “you can call me Omega. Treat me like...your Omega?”

“Omega,” Steve breathes, and Bucky shudders, the pleasure curling hot and unexpected in his stomach, both relieving and intensifying his most recent cramp. “I’ll see you soon.”

***

He can’t pile blankets fast enough on his bed. Bucky bemoans his lack of pillows -- he can only find ten, and is _ten good enough? For a big, strong Alpha?_ \-- while stacking them viciously into an approximation of a nest.

After Clint dropped him off with a cackle of “ _Be safe! Have fun!”,_ Bucky had nearly sprinted up the steps to his apartment so he could clean and prepare. Steve had sent him a text letting him know he’d be there in ten minutes, and that was nine minutes ago, and Bucky’s still desperately heaping a nest together, praying it doesn’t look like it’s the first official nest he’s ever made for an Alpha (because it is), and praying that Steve will find it halfway acceptable and not snort and shake his head and leave Bucky here to _suffer on his own._

He’s wearing soft shorts and a tank top, too hot and sticky and cross to bother with hiding his arm or the scars (Steve’s seen both, the logical part of him rationalizes, albeit quietly, Steve actively doesn’t care that Bucky is damaged goods, at least, he hasn’t cared yet). The shorts might have to go, Bucky thinks as another wave of heat cramps wash over him, considering he’s already soaked through them. He didn’t bother with underwear though, and he probably shouldn’t open his door wearing nothing but a tank top, slick coursing down his thighs.

_What if he did though? What if he opened the door and immediately presented and Steve took him right then and there in the foyer, without even closing the door, and --_

His heat isn’t fully here, which is the only reason why Bucky doesn’t give into that instinct.

A soft but insistent knock on his front door alerts him to Steve’s arrival, and Bucky almost takes himself out sprinting for the entrance. He smooths his hair as much as he can, more pawing at it than anything else, the bun he’d managed to make when he changed already falling apart, and Bucky catches a glimpse of himself in the hallway mirror before he opens the door.

His cheeks are bright red, he’s more than a little sweaty, and his eyes are glazed over with the promise of sex -- yeah, Bucky doesn’t look too great.

_Whatever._

Bucky takes a deep, steadying breath, well aware that the second he really scents Steve, it’ll be game over, and swings the door open.

Steve Rogers stands there, wearing an obscenely tight plain t-shirt and running shorts; he’s holding paper grocery bags which are overflowing with food -- cute, that he thinks they’ll have time to eat -- and staring at Bucky, his own face flushed.

He steps inside, and before Bucky can take another breath in, Bucky blurts out, “I need you to fuck me, really fuck me, and I mean anywhere, everywhere, please, please just touch me, I might - fuck --” A cramp hits him, and he clutches at his side.

Steve closing the door and locking it firmly barely registers, and he doesn’t even see where Steve sets the groceries before large, hot hands are pressing over his own, and Steve’s snuffling at him.

“Omega,” Steve rumbles, and Bucky’s eyes flutter shut.

“Y-yeah,” he agrees, and then he takes his first, real inhale since Steve walked in.

The smell of city-after-rain and metal and power slams into him harder than it ever has, heightened by sweat, and Bucky whimpers more than a little pathetically. He tilts his head back, showing his throat.

“ _Alpha._ ”

It’s like he’s spoken some kind of magic word, and in a way, maybe he has. Steve scents him immediately, descending on him, hands gripping him like a vise but also not strong enough. He licks down Bucky’s neck, pressing his nose into the base of it, sliding to where it becomes his shoulder, and he inhales, roughly. Bucky scrabbles at Steve’s back, going up on his toes as Steve pulls away from him, trying to stay close.

“Bed,” Bucky asks, almost regretting it the second it leaves his throat. _What kind of Omega orders their Alpha,_ he scolds himself. _Do you want him to leave?_

Steve has no such questions though; he picks Bucky up and hefts him over his shoulder, hands firm around his ass as he hauls him to the open door. “Bed,” Steve agrees, and Bucky fights the urge to writhe against Steve’s hands.

He’s set down surprisingly gently on the bed, and Steve’s on him in a second, his hands pushing up his tank top and exposing his flat stomach. Steve’s mouth follows his hands a second later, licking and sucking the taut skin and Bucky keens above him. It does almost nothing to quell the cramp in his gut, that won’t be helped unless Steve _actually fucking fucks him,_ and Steve chuckles against his stomach.

“Patience, babydoll,” Steve chides, and Bucky gets even hotter with the realization that he said that out loud.

_What must he think of him?_

“I think you’re precious,” Steve soothes, and Bucky winces, embarrassed at his inability to keep his mouth shut. “I think you’re perfect,” he whispers, mouthing along the scars at his shoulder -- _when did Bucky’s tank top disappear, whatever, he doesn’t care_ \-- “I think you’re gorgeous,” Steve bites at Bucky’s collarbone, only six inches away from where Bucky wouldn’t particularly _care_ if his teeth sunk in.

“And, Buck?”

Bucky looks up at him in a haze of lust, trust churning at the center of it, trust that this big, goofy, lovable Alpha won’t hurt him -- _Clint said he loves us,_ his gleeful inner Omega rejoices, _Clint says he’s in love with us_ \-- and smiles at him dopily.

Steve must take that as an answer because he places his palm against Bucky’s heated cheek and smiles back. “I think you’re mine. Is that true?”

“It’s,” Bucky gasps and nods, tugging at Steve’s shirt and chest, trying to pull him down, “Yes. Yes, it’s -- yours. I’m yours, Stevie, make me yours.” He thrusts his hips up, a motion embarrassing in its urgency, trying to get some kind of friction.

Steve Rogers is a merciful god, for he takes the invitation and settles himself in the cradle of Bucky’s hips, rocking his erect cock along the cleft of Bucky’s ass. He keens again in response, trying to get _more,_ and Steve kisses him, hard and possessive, his tongue sliding against Bucky’s when he pants for breath.

He scrambles at the waistband of his shorts, and Steve doesn’t even laugh at the wild attempt, his blue eyes pleased and dark at the sight; hands much larger than his own take over and pull them down, and Bucky’s cock slaps against his pelvis with a sound more pathetic than the one Bucky’s mouth makes when Steve stands and shucks off his own shorts.

Steve crawls back up the bed, kissing any inch of Bucky he can.

“Did you make this nest, Omega?” Steve asks, with an undertone of growl in it. Bucky nods helplessly, his legs writhing against the sheets while Steve hovers barely out of reach.

“Made it for you,” Bucky admits, covering his eyes with his hand. “Alpha.”

“You did so well,” Steve whispers, his hand wrapping around Bucky’s cock. Bucky drops his hand away from his eyes to stare at where Steve’s golden, perfect hand is stroking his cock. “So good for me.”

Bucky comes with absolutely no other effort, his ass clenching on nothing, more slick leaking out and soaking the sheets.

He’s groggy and loose-limbed after, and when he tries to apologize in a haze, Steve curls up around him, nosing at his hairline and rumbles at him to _sleep, babydoll._

For once, Bucky’s a good Omega and obeys.

**

***

By day four, Bucky’s heat shows little sign of abating, and Steve … can’t say he’s complaining.

He spends any waking moment where he isn’t buried in Bucky’s tight, perfect asshole praying to any god that doesn’t hate him yet to spare him any kind of Avengers emergency. It’s not like he’d _leave,_ but he would get in trouble for biting the head off of any SHIELD agent that came to try and pull him away.

It’s not often he goes full Alpha, still more or less affected by his lack of heats before the serum; but, Bucky’s always been different, and right now, Steve has not a single doubt that he would physically destroy _anyone_ who tried to separate them.

He stands at the stove, stirring macaroni and cheese -- Bucky has very simple tastes during his heat, it turns out -- and he growls to himself at the _thought_ of someone showing up to try and pull him away. In his imagination, he can see himself ripping someone limb from limb, a faceless entity with no identity other than _threat to Omega._

“What’s wrong?”

Steve turns to see Bucky blinking and rubbing at his eyes at the edge of the kitchen, wearing nothing but fuzzy socks and Steve’s abandoned t-shirt. His eyes linger at the way it barely covers Bucky’s cock, which tents the material only slightly, and then his eyes slide down to Bucky’s thighs, the insides of which are littered with lovebites -- Bucky’s smiling at him shyly, eyes shining, when Steve drags his eyes up to Bucky’s face.

“You should be in bed,” Steve points out, and Bucky makes a face at him.

“Bossy.” _Maybe his heat_ is _almost over, then._ As though sensing Steve’s thought, Bucky’s face falls. “Sorry.”

“I am bossy.” Steve turns the heat off on the stove and pushes the pot off the burner. “I like it when you call me on it.”

“Yeah?” Bucky fiddles with the hem of the too big shirt and smiles again.

“Yeah.” Steve saunters over to him, pleased that he isn’t wearing a stitch of clothing besides his pajama pants. That means there’s almost nothing separating them when he hauls Bucky into himself and kisses him soundly. “There’s nothing I don’t like about you, though.”

Bucky blushes prettily and purrs, and Steve smiles down at him, happy to see his Omega so pleased and soft and pretty. Bucky normally wouldn’t let him coddle him to a tenth of this amount, and while he loves Bucky in any way, shape, or form, there’s something to be said about an Omega so blissful they’re purring. And, as Bucky’s so rarely like this, it’s worth all the more when Steve gets to see it.

“Why _are_ you out of bed?” Steve asks, pressing his open mouth to the spot above Bucky’s mating gland. He drags his tongue over it lazily, enjoying the way Bucky shudders in his arms. “I woulda brought you dinner.”

“Strong Alpha,” Bucky teases, and Steve smiles against his neck before straightening up. “I - I woke up and I missed you is all,” Bucky mumbles, and Steve’s a goner.

He’s got dinner on the stove, and cookies baking in the oven -- Bucky’s a complete sweets goblin during his heat, apparently, and that makes Steve love him even more -- but he doesn’t care about anything but the man in his arms.

“Are you ready for me again?” Steve asks, worried that if Bucky’s heat is coming to a close, his slick might not be as productive.

In answer, Bucky takes his hand and guides it to his back, down into the cleft of his ass. He doesn’t even look embarrassed as he smirks up at Steve, whose fingers curl into the slick, hot mess he finds there.

“Omega,” Steve moans, kissing him again, and Bucky kisses him back eagerly, no finesse, just unbridled, unhidden need. “Do you want my knot?”

“Need it,” Bucky corrects, pushing at his chest. Steve’s confused for a second until Bucky turns his back on him and grips the counter. “Fucking _now,_ please--”

Steve places his fingers back at Bucky’s entrance, one hand gripping a firm cheek so he can spread him apart a little and look at him -- it’s branded onto his brain, he’s sure, but he still likes to look -- but Bucky almost snaps at him. “Fuck me.”

“I wanna get you ready, babydoll,” Steve soothes, partly glad that he’s not in rut because there’s no way he’d have this much control then; thank God for Fury’s bizarrely strong suppressants.

_Don’t think about Nick Fury right now. What is wrong with you?_

Luckily, his cock isn’t too off-put by the thought of Steve’s cantankerous boss, because Bucky presses back against him, shaking his head urgently.

“Need you. Now. Please, just -- I’m ready, I’m so ready, please--” Bucky’s hand grips his cock and guides it to his dripping hole, and Steve’s brain goes offline, perhaps permanently.

It only takes a roll of his hips to slide inside Bucky, and they groan together, Bucky leaning over the counter and Steve’s forehead pressed between Bucky’s shoulderblades.

“Move,” Bucky begs. “Alpha, please.”

Who is Steve to deny him anything?

He fucks him quickly, one hand gripping Bucky’s metal arm for leverage, the other tight on his waist, and Bucky whimpers and grunts and throws his head back so prettily that Steve can feel his knot forming within three minutes.

“Come for me,” Steve growls, leaning down and licking a hot stripe over Bucky’s mating gland. “My Omega.”

Bucky clenches around him with a shocking grip as he howls and comes as Steve asked. Steve can’t even worry about mess as one, two, three thrusts later he’s coming with a shout of his own, filling Bucky up and locking it in with his knot; he presses apologetic kisses into Bucky’s mating gland, so close to his scar tissue, and Bucky pats his hair as if to let him know that he doesn’t care about the mess and the strangely long time it will take for Steve’s knot to go down.

Steve guides them back into a chair, collapsing into it so heavily that it groans in protest. Bucky rocks his hips over Steve’s, coaxing out another wave of come, and they both heave a sigh of contentment.

“Are you comfortable?” Steve asks, closing his eyes, and stroking his hands down Bucky’s thighs.

“Mhm.” Bucky shifts in his seat in Steve’s lap, and tilts his head back on Steve’s shoulder. Steve kisses his neck and cheek thoroughly until Bucky turns his head for a real kiss.

“I love you,” Steve mumbles, fucked-out and blissful. His eyes open quickly in surprise at what he’s just confessed, his hips jolting up at the shock of it, and that motion has Bucky gasping in surprise and coming again, a small weak spurt of come from his cock, and another rush of slick around Steve’s cock.

“Sorry,” Steve whispers, fully mortified. His mother raised him with manners, and good manners did _not_ entail love confessions while knot-deep in your prickly, sweet, gorgeous lover.

“D-don’t be,” Bucky shakes his head frantically, patting at Steve’s face while he catches his breath. “I …. I love you too.”

“Yeah?” Steve asks, knowing his voice is drenched with hope and his eyes are wide and shining now. Bucky snorts without even looking at him.

“Yeah, punk. Guess you’re stuck with me. I mean. Even more than…” he trails off, swiveling his hips as though to punctuate how _stuck_ they are.

Steve gooses him lightly, and Bucky jolts before complaining at him with a grumble; Steve kisses the side of his neck to apologize.

The timer goes off over the oven, then, and they both look over to it in mild surprise. Bucky’s stomach grumbles under Steve’s hand, making the larger man smile.

“I need to get that,” Steve frowns, remembering their predicament. “...Somehow.”

“Did you make something?” Bucky asks, squinting over at the oven.

“Cookies,” Steve confirms, and Bucky kisses his cheek before freezing.

“I don’t … see any….mixing bowls. Did you clean up already?”

“...No,” Steve admits, unable to look Bucky in the eye, hoping their positioning is excuse enough.

Bucky glowers at him and then gasps in shock and outrage, pointing at a telltale yellow wrapper on the counter across from them.

“Steven Grant Rogers! Tell me you didn’t use _frozen cookie dough!_ ”

“Okay, then. I didn’t use frozen cookie dough.” Steve’s still too elated in the fact that Bucky loves him too, and he refuses to be dismayed by the scowl sent his way.

“You were going to feed me Tollhouse?”

“Nothing but the best for my babydoll,” Steve says cheerfully, turning Bucky’s face towards him so he can kiss his cheeks. Bucky keeps grumbling but relents, letting Steve kiss him again, and Steve smiles into it, happy and pleased and completely at a loss for how they’re going to get those cookies out of the oven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said at the end of Chapter four, I have lots of plans for the future of this fic! But, I figured you all wouldn't mind a smutty little interlude in the meantime.....let me know what you think ! And thanks for reading :)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! <3 <3 <3


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